Ben Healy takes time to savour being top of the pile
First he attacked an eight man breakaway at just the right time on Stage 6 for his first ever Tour stage win and then he lead and EF Education-EasyPost assault on Stage 10 to become the fourth Irish cyclist to wear the yellow jersey.
But the real trick? Taking that race lead just before a rest day so he had the time and space to savour his achievement.
Which is exactly what he's been doing as he wore the fabled yellow jersey on the rest day in the south of France.
"(I've been) maximising the time in the yellow jersey," he said told Shane Stokes on 2fm's Game On. "It was not even a proper jersey yet, it was the podium jersey from yesterday. But I wasn't going to pass that opportunity up.
"We stopped in a cafe in Toulouse, and it was just a mob of fans, which was something that I've never, never experienced before, so I'm just soaking it all up.
"It's just been a bit of a wild one, really, it's just unbelievable. If you told me that this would have been my Tour de France so far, before the Tour, I just wouldn't have believed you."
Healy started Stage 10 day 3' 55" down on UAE Team Emirates XRG rider Tadej Pogacar in yellow, but took advantage of a favourable stage profile to get himself into a large breakaway, which managed to stay well clear of the peloton as GC favourites Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard failed to muster a fight until late in the stage.
Reflecting on the both his and his team's performance he admitted that they took a big gamble, which paid off handsomely.
"On the stage it was honestly a really great feeling to start with when we played the breakaway formation perfectly," he said. "All four of us got in pretty comfortably really and then it was just a matter of keeping the breakaway rolling.
"When we realized the gap was actually going out and UAE were riding quite a different race to what they normally would, that's when our mentality changed and we really started to drive the break.
"From that point onwards I did really start to get more and more nervous because I really believed that I had a chance to go into yellow and that it was something that we could pull off.
"But for sure it was a risky game to play because I think making that break, it really put the onus on us to do the work.
"When it got to 25k to go that's when I just had to go, 'right this is it all or nothing,', and really go for yellow and the last climb I paced really well.
"Thankfully things fell my way and it was honestly just a feeling of relief when it happened."
The 24-year-old now holds a 29 second lead over Pogacar in the general classification but with the Slovenian likely to strike back on Wednesday, Healy is just enjoying being top of pile.
"I just want to honour the jersey the best I possibly can," he said. "I know what I'm up against, so it's going to be hard. But I'll give it my all, that's for sure."
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Irish Times
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Sunday World
an hour ago
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