Ben Healy wins with flair, Tadej Pogacar plays manager at the Tour de France

By his own admission, Ben Healy is a terrible sprinter. The type of rider who rarely wins when it comes to winning on the pedals, in the final meters. The 24-year-old Irishman tends to achieve his successes alone, after sniffing out the right breakaway and getting away from it. A method that the EF Education-EasyPost team rider impeccably applied to win the 6th stage of the 2025 Tour de France, Thursday, July 10 , in Vire (Calvados), after a 42-kilometer effort, alone in the lead.

For the first time in this Tour de France, the day's breakaway – or at least one of its members – went all the way, taking advantage of the slower pace set by the peloton, which was still affected by Tadej Pogacar's (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) takeover the day before. This breakaway only lasted one day, as Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who had been in the breakaway for much of the stage, took the yellow jersey from the Slovenian by a second.

On a 201.5-kilometer stage that suited his strengths, the Dutchman was nevertheless surprised, like his six other breakaway teammates, by the acceleration of Ben Healy, who was determined to go it alone towards victory. They could have seen it coming. In his first Grand Tour victory, at the 2023 Giro, the Irishman won in Fossombrone following an attack 50 kilometers from the finish. At the Tour of the Basque Country in April, he made a solo effort of 57 kilometers before winning the 5th stage.

You have 71.59% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.