Tour de France 2025: Ben Healy rides into yellow as Simon Yates storms to stage 10 win
Simon Yates took a third career stage win in the Tour, only a few weeks after his unexpected success in the Giro d'Italia, dropping the last of his breakaway companions on the uphill finish to Puy de Sancy, while Ireland's Ben Healy claimed the first yellow jersey of his career.
Healy, stage winner in Vire, had started the day almost four minutes behind the race leader, Pogacar, but as the defending champion and Vingegaard rode steadily to the finish line, the 24-year-old leapfrogged the Slovenian in the standings and became the first Irishman to wear the yellow jersey since Stephen Roche in 1987.
'It was such a tough stage today and I'm really tired, so I think this is only going to sink in tomorrow,' he said. 'I gave everything in the last 40 kilometres to give myself the best possible chance of taking the yellow jersey.'
Healy's success was wholly deserved after he and his team had forced the pace to ensure the day's breakaway stayed clear to contest the finish, with the main peloton, containing Pogacar, almost six minutes distant.
'This is more for the team,' Healy said. 'They had to work hard today to put me in this position. Winning a stage was the first dream, but don't get me wrong, this yellow jersey is unbelievable.'
Yates, winner of two stages in 2019, attacked at the foot of the final climb to Puy de Sancy, with only the Australian rider Ben O'Connor able to follow. As O'Connor faded, he was pursued into the final kilometre by Thymen Arensman of Ineos Grenadiers, but the Dutchman was unable to close the gap.
As the race began in Lille, Yates had admitted needing to 'blow out the cobwebs' after his Giro win, but added that it had been a bigger challenge to reboot his motivation.
'It was a tough start for me,' he said of the Tour's Grand Départ, 'and not my forte. I was still quite tired after the Giro. Mentally, that was the hardest part.'
Yates was among those in the day's breakaway who had admired Healy's unrelenting efforts to keep the pace high. 'It's really impressive how strong he is. It's not the first day I have felt his strength. I was also in the breakaway a few days ago when he won the stage and I was quite blown away with how much time he took.'
The still air of the Auvergne was thick with the smell of roadside barbecues as the peloton tackled a sawtooth profile from Ennezat to Le Puy Sancy. But despite the Bastille Day celebrations there were mixed fortunes for the home nation with Kévin Vauquelin, third overall before the first real climbs, losing ground in the classification and dropping to sixth place.
Meanwhile Lenny Martinez, whose grandfather Mariano Martinez won on the Bastille Day stage to Morzine in 1980, was the agent provocateur on the day's eight climbs. Martinez's accelerations on each ascent gradually reduced the initial break of 29 down to a final group of five and he was rewarded with the King of the Mountains jersey.
As the stage entered the final 10km, a select group that included Healy, Yates and Martinez moved clear. While Yates rode to victory, the limpet-like Healy clung on to ensure he retained his time advantage over Pogacar.
The Irishman gets a well-earned rest day in Toulouse on Tuesday as his EF Education-Easy Post team now look ahead to defending the race lead into the Pyrenees.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Arsenal ‘make MAJOR breakthrough in Ethan Nwaneri contract talks'... as rumours of playmaker's demands for more playing time are cleared up
Arsenal 's teenage sensation Ethan Nwaneri is reportedly close to signing a new a long-term contract, amid uncertainty surrounding his future. The 18-year-old enjoyed a fine breakout campaign for the Gunners last season as he scored nine goals in 37 appearances across all competitions. However, there has been speculation that Nwaneri could leave Mikel Arteta 's side, with his existing deal set to expire next summer. This has only been fuelled by the impending arrival of Noni Madueke from Chelsea, as well as Arsenal's strong interest in Crystal Palace's Eberechi Eze - both of whom Nwaneri may find himself competing for position with. Nevertheless, the Hale End graduate appears determined to fight for his place at Arsenal, with contract talks gathering pace as Nwaneri signals his commitment to his boyhood club. The England Under-21 international's priority was always to stay in north London, according to The Athletic. It is understood that Nwaneri - who played almost 1400 minutes in all competitions last season - did not make any demands regarding his playing time during recent negotiations. Mail Sport reported last week that Arsenal hope they can convince the player to stay by offering him a five-year contract - or a four-year deal with an option for a further year to be included. Arteta and sporting director Andrea Berta are said to remain positive that an agreement can be reached, while Nwaneri's team are also keen on finding common ground. Should that be the case - and Nwaneri were to end up signing a new contract - he would be the third Arsenal player to commit their long-term future to the club this summer. They have already seen fellow youngster Myles Lewis-Skelly sign a new contract that will keep him at the club until 2030. Fellow defender Gabriel has also put pen to paper on a new deal that will see him stay in N5 until 2029.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Tour de France's phoney war gets dose of reality as Pogacar v Vingegaard hits the mountains
There is always a sense of phoney war in the run-in to the Tour de France's first stage in the high mountains, and at least one debate of the opening 10 days of this year's race fits that context to a T. Has Jonas Vingegaard's Visma-Lease a Bike team at times been towing the bunch deliberately in order to ensure that Tadej Pogacar retains the yellow jersey? It's a gloriously arcane question, the kind that only comes up in the Tour's opening phase, but it distracts from a point that could be key in the next 10 days: how the two teams manage the race will probably be decisive. Firstly, a brief explainer. The received wisdom in cycling lore is that holding the yellow jersey early in a Grand Tour can be as much a curse as a blessing, because the daily media and podium duties cut into recovery time. Hence the thinking goes that Visma might have been chasing down the odd move purposely to keep Pogacar in the maillot jaune, so that he will be answering media questions and hanging about waiting to go on the podium, while Vingegaard has his feet up. Only Visma's management know if this was the case, but what is certain is that the febrile atmosphere between the two teams will intensify from here on in. In that context, Monday's slog through the Massif Central was a score draw between the two armadas. Pogacar could afford to lose yellow to Ben Healy of Ireland as it buys his UAE team some down time at least on Wednesday and Thursday, when Healy's EF squad will have to control the race. On the other hand, Simon Yates's opportunistic stage win on Monday redressed the balance a little in favour of Visma; at this stage of the Tour, any amount of positive momentum is welcome. The tone had been set for the opening 10 days – and possibly the whole Tour – about 15km from the finish of the first stage into Lille on 5 July when Vingegaard and his lieutenants Matteo Jorgenson and Edoardo Affini surged to the front of the peloton in a cross wind and split the race. Pogacar was not to be caught out, but only one of his men made the split of about 40; Vingegaard, on the other hand, had three with him. Visma have no option but to try to find openings, to probe UAE's defences constantly to seek the single chink in the armour that may enable their leader to pull back some of his 1min 17sec deficit to Pogacar. Hence an abortive attempt to split the field on Sunday into Châteauroux led by Wout van Aert, and Monday's classic display of tactical mountain racing, with Yates and the Belgian Victor Campenaerts sent ahead in a breakaway just in case either Vingegaard or Jorgenson managed to elude Pogacar and his men. This kind of racing has paid massive dividends for the Dutch squad in the past, most recently at the Giro d'Italia, where Yates managed an unlikely overall victory with the support of Van Aert, at the expense of UAE's starlet Isaac del Toro. The scenario that is the stuff of nightmares for the UAE management is the one that Visma (in their previous incarnation as Jumbo-Visma) engineered in 2022, when UAE were first reduced in numbers by illness, and were then put to the sword by Vingegaard, Van Aert and Primoz Roglic in the Alps. Roglic has moved on, but Jorgenson is an adequate replacement; he has twice won the Paris-Nice stage race and finished eighth in the Tour last year while supporting Vingegaard. The obvious tactic for Visma in the next 10 days will be to burn off Pogacar's support riders to engineer a situation in which the Slovenian ends up on his own on a mountain with Jorgenson and Vingegaard, who can attack him one by one. Pogacar may well prove equal to the task, but there is only one way to find out. Any one of the four high mountain stages in the Alps and Pyrenees would be adequate, and they only need Pogacar to flinch once. Nerves will have been sharpened by João Almeida's heavy crash on Friday en route to Mûr-de-Bretagne, which forced him to quit the race on Sunday. With Rafal Majka sitting out this Tour, that has deprived the double Tour winner of his principal mountain wingman. Almeida – 'the best teammate in the world,' as Pogacar put it – would have provided substantial support: he has notched up nine wins this year, including the Tour of Switzerland. 'Someone will have to step in,' said the UAE director of sport, Simone Pedrazzini, but the uncomfortable fact is that Almeida offered a back-up option, a man who could mark a breakaway and potentially work towards finishing on the podium. Neither Adam Yates or Jhonatan Narváez is a like-for-like replacement, while another UAE climber, Pavel Sivakov, looked distinctly out of sorts on Sunday and Monday. UAE will need him to recover during Tuesday's rest day. There are questions around Visma as well. Yates's stage win on Monday suggests he is back to top form after his struggles on the opening stage, but thus far Van Aert has blown hot and cold, completely absent at times, shy of his best at others, but capable of finishing second to Jonathan Milan on Saturday into Laval. It remains to be seen if he is merely riding himself in having taken a break after the Giro. In past Tours, he has proven capable of smashing the entire race into smithereens on any mountain stage, and if Visma are hoping to take the fight to UAE in the next 10 days, they need him to quickly rediscover that same blistering form.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Michael Schumacher's son Mick in talks over ‘incredible' F1 return after three years
MICK SCHUMACHER has confirmed he is in talks to return to F1 with newcomers Cadillac. The son of legendary F1 driver Michael Schumacher could make a comeback next season having not raced in the sport since leaving Haas in 2022. 1 He has also been a reserve driver for both Mercedes and McLaren - but was replaced by Valtteri Bottas as Merc driver at the end of last season. New General Motors-backed team Cadillac will be on the grid for the first time from 2026 and are finalising their line-up. The 26-year-old said: "Yes, of course, discussions are ongoing. The communication has been very positive so far. "They've already hired a fantastic number of people for it [the project]. It's an honour to be part of it, to negotiate with them, and a great position to be in." Ex-Red Bull driver Sergio Perez and Bottas are thought to be the favourites for the two Cadillac seats. But team boss Graeme Lowdon remains a huge admirer of Schumacher - who currently drives in the World Endurance Championship with Alpine. During him time in F1, Schumacher started 43 races. His best placing was a sixth place finish, while he only finished in the points twice. Lowdon has also confirmed that "positive" discussions with Schumacher had taken place while on the High Performance podcast. He said: "Yeah, we're talking to Mick." He also added on Sky Deutschland: "Mick is great. He's a very nice guy, I like him a lot. I've got to know him better now. "He's still young, but he already has F1 experience. Of course, that was a while ago, but he's kept himself up to date. "We really like that. We really like that. He is no stranger to the team. He knows where we stand. There are some positive things to say about Mick. "He is clearly one of the drivers on the list. But I should also say that the list is quite long." Lowdon has also previously confirmed that talks with Bottas have taken place. The Cadillac boss wants the team to make a statement in their first year and not just make up the numbers. He said: "Everyone wants to prove something else again. I never look at that as the biggest motivator. "Our team is not there as a vehicle for someone to prove a point. Our team is there to provide a position on the pitch, if you like. "For someone to prove what they can do for sure, but it's not the vehicle to show the world, prove a point, or whatever. "The driver is there to do the best that they possibly can for their team, and they should be motivated for the team around them as well. So, I'm less keen on people who kind of want to prove a personal point." When asked about the prospect of Perez joining the cause, Lowdon did not rule it out. He added: "Every single person, every name that you're going to read out, we're talking to everyone because everyone wants the drive."
