Stephen Roche on Ben Healy: ‘The sky is the limit, and if I were him, I'd keep dreaming big'
Stephen Roche
first rode his bike up to the ski resort at La Plagne in the 1987
Tour de France
nothing about its brutal gradient or length has changed.
'No, it hasn't got any easier, or shorter,' says Roche, who rode up La Plagne again last Friday as part of the Cure Leukaemia charity cycle, which has been covering all of this year's Tour stages a week in advance.
'Still 19km, not much shelter on it either, and a fast road. The Tour stages these days are a bit shorter, it was only 129km, but still a lot of climbing, standing on the pedals.'
It was the pivotal summit finish in Roche's outright Tour victory in 1987, the 185km Stage 21 from Le Bourg d'Oisans to La Plagne, remembered in part for Phil Liggett's legendary race commentary on Channel 4:
READ MORE
'Again, Pedro Delgado has slipped Stephen Roche on the climb. But remember, at one point he had a minute and a half, and just who is that rider coming up behind ... because that looks like Roche! That looks like Stephen Roche, it's Stephen Roche that has come over the line. He almost caught Pedro Delgado, I don't believe it. Surely ... Stephen Roche is now going to win this Tour de France.'
Whether this Friday's Stage 19 to La Plagne, the last big mountain finish, proves equally pivotal remains to be seen, but the 2025 Tour will already be remembered for the exploits of
Ben Healy
. After winning Stage 6 with a 42km solo breakaway in Vire Normandie, Healy became the first Irish rider since Roche in 1987 to take the leader's yellow jersey after Stage 10, wearing it for two days on Stage 11 and 12.
Roche has been watching Healy's career closely over the last number of years, reckoning he might need to rein in his attacking style a little, especially in the Tour.
'I don't know Ben very well, but he's a great guy. I met him last year at the World Championships in Zurich. A few of them were having a few drinks in a bar after the race. I was congratulating him on his season and just chatting like that. I told him maybe refrain a little, rather than attacking 25 times, attack maybe five times.
'He was saying 'that's the way I am, I do things differently', and I just told him your career goes very quickly, you don't want to be known as a very aggressive rider but (who) hasn't got a palmarès (list of wins). It's about winning races, that's what you leave behind.
'I wasn't advising him, we were just shooting the breeze, but then when I saw him winning his first Tour stage, and majestically winning it, it was a brilliant ride.
'Being in the group from a long way out, attacking with 40km to go, you need some balls to do that.
Tadej Pogačar
can do it, but very few actually do it and maintain it. I was a little worried he might keel over on the final climb, but no, Ben just kept going, putting more time on the two guys behind him.'
Ben Healy approaches the line solo to win Stage 6 of the 2025 Tour de France. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images
After taking over the yellow jersey in Puy de Sancy, Healy became only the fourth Irish rider to wear the famed maillot jaune. Roche wore it for three days in 1987, as did Shay Elliott in 1963, while Seán Kelly wore it for one day in 1983.
'It was the way he managed that stage,' says Roche of Healy's Stage 10 effort. 'He rode so aggressively from the front, knew the yellow jersey was there and he was prepared to dig in and go for it, whatever the result was. Again, very few riders can do that, especially in today's cycling.'
Healy lost the yellow jersey on the first big day of climbs in the Hautes-Pyrénées, coming in 13 minutes and 38 seconds behind Pogačar despite the best efforts of his team EF Education-EasyPost. Wearing the yellow jersey for even a single day can take an extra toll on the rider, although Roche doesn't believe that necessarily got to Healy.
'Ben is also a very laid-back guy. I was a bit different, and I think in our day there was a lot more stress after winning a stage, or winning a yellow jersey.
'Riders these days are more micromanaged, they have their own press officer looking after them, so I wouldn't say wearing the yellow jersey took that much out of him.
'But Healy hasn't come out of nowhere, this is the fruit of his hard work and dedication. He must also believe in himself now, after the performances he's put in the last few years, in the Tour and the Classics.'
Ben Healy (right) is beaten to the line by Soudal Quick-Step's Valentin Paret-Peintre on Stage 16. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images
Healy displayed all his belief again in Tuesday's stage to Mont Ventoux, falling just a bike-length short of another place in Tour history, crossing the line second behind Frenchman Valentin Paret-Peintre.
'I thought he was unlucky,' says Roche. 'Tactically, maybe he didn't play it right. It's easy to say that in hindsight, but if I was Ben, after winning a stage and wearing the yellow jersey, I wouldn't have been so aggressive. I'd have sat back and told the others 'if you want to win this stage, you ride for it'. I'd have a bluffed a little bit too,' says Roche.
'He definitely deserved to win, and until the last 50m he had won it. But you could see Paret-Peintre had some extra motivation, to be the first French stage winner on this Tour.'
For Roche, there's no doubt the 24-year-old Healy is still approaching his prime. Roche rode the Tour 10 times, finishing third in 1985 (aged 25), winning in 1987 aged 27, then winning another stage in 1992 (aged 32).
🚴♂️ Cycling legend Stephen Roche has just added his signature to this jersey YOU could WIN! This unique jersey will be signed by four Tour de France winners.
For every £20 donation to
— The Tour 21 (@TheTour21)
'He can definitely get better in time trialling with a bit more coaching. Climbing, we've seen he's not far off the mark. Generally, there's still a bit of progression to be made. So the sky is the limit, and if I were him, I'd keep dreaming big.
'I think he definitely has what it takes to target the podium anyway. You've got to target the yellow jersey, of course, but he can definitely target the podium.
'Until now, some people were saying 'Ben who? Oh the Irish guy?' But after this Tour, Ben Healy is a household name in cycling, all the peloton know what Ben is capable of, so you won't get as much rope as you got before. Once you start knocking on the door, doing these kind of performances, you become a marked man.
'But I don't think that will bother Ben. He shoots from the hip, really. Sometimes that comes with a cost as well, but the Tour is a special case, it's a different monster. You really do need to have special qualities to get up there like Healy has.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Smallest big-race field in a decade lines out for Galway festival feature
A field of just 14 runners for Tuesday evening's Galway festival feature, the €120,000 Colm Quinn BMW Mile, is the smallest for a decade. Normally there's competition to make the maximum limit of 18 runners but this time the Day Two feature seems to underline broader trends. Horse Racing Ireland statistics for the first half of 2025 show that entries for flat races are down 7.8 per cent on the same period last year. The average field size for flat races is down 1.8 per cent compared to an increase for jumps races. The prospect of a deficit for what's traditionally one of Galway's most fiercely competitive handicaps would have been unlikely even a year ago, when Mexicali Rose beat 17 opponents. READ MORE A non-runner in 2018 meant Riven Light beat 16 rivals, but it requires going back to 2015 to see 14 runners led home by Hint Of A Tint. There were also 14 declarations in 2012. With a hefty six-figure pot up for grabs, and the race's notable history, it smacks of a feeble turnout. Last year's runner up Norwalk Havoc is back to try to go one better but off a 3lb higher rating. The 2023 winner Coeur D'or is back too, as is the course specialist Dunum, who was third that year. The big Mile is a rare gap on Aidan O'Brien 's CV and Jack Cleary takes 5lbs off the Ballydoyle hope Mississippi River. Tony Martin will be looking for an ease in the ground for his Irish Lincolnshire winner Orandi, who hasn't run since finishing third in the English Lincoln last March. Big Galway handicaps often see the culmination of lengthy planning but Slieve Binnian hardly fits that category. He is the only one of the 14 runners with a pair of '1's' next to his name having landed a pair of €100,000 handicaps on his last two starts. A win on Irish Derby-day was followed by a stylish success in Nasrullah Handicap at Leopardstown earlier this month. Formerly with Michael Halford and Tracey Collins, the grey is in the form of his life and trainer David Marnane has made no secret of how he thinks this Galway test could be ideal for him. Still, one negative is that Slieve Binnian has never run around Galway before and course form is always a plus in Ballybrit. Tom Gibney's stalwart Imposing Supreme is a prime example with four course victories to his credit. On the back of a promising comeback effort at Killarney recently he can compete again off a mark of 76 in a later handicap. Rampage is also a course and distance winner who goes in the finale. The form of his recent all-weather success was boosted in Gowran at the weekend. The juvenile fillies' maiden has a rare roll of honour with subsequent classic winners Tahiyra (2022), Hermosa (2018) and Legatissimo (2014) all breaking their duck here. Thenandnow and Amelia Earhart filled the frame behind Phenomenal Filly at Leopardstown and clash again. However, Paddy Twomey has a line to both through his newcomer Black Caviar Gold who holds a Moyglare entry. Twomey won this with Purple Lily two years ago.
Irish Times
11 hours ago
- Irish Times
Galway Races: Davy Crockett makes last stand in first race
In the first race of this year's Galway Festival , the hopes of punters rested ominously on a horse called Davy Crockett. If you were of a superstitious bent, as most racegoers are, it was not encouraging to reflect that the original, two-legged Davy Crockett is mainly famous for a doomed last stand at the Siege of the Alamo, where he and everyone else died. On the other hand, that Davy was not trained by Willie Mullins , ridden by Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Mark Walsh or owned by JP McManus . If he had been any of the foregoing, he would probably have been well out of Texas and by the time the trouble started. Also encouraging to supporters of the four-legged version, meanwhile, was that his main rival was a horse named Mick Collins. That was hardly designed to reassure the nervous either. READ MORE So the Mullins horse was backed into odds-on favouritism for the novice hurdle, and, as so often with Mullins-trained mounts, the weight of money proved well justified. Mick Collins briefly laid siege to Davy Crockett around the last bend after the latter made a mistake. But the favourite pulled clear up the straight and, roared to the finish line by a big opening-night crowd, got the festival off to a heart-warmingly bad start for the bookmakers. It was a different story in the second race, where another Mullins runner, Rakki, started favourite, albeit in a much more competitive field of 20. Among his backers, at a tenner each way, were two Slovakian sisters, Rebeka and Radka Kotulakova, who admitted they only picked the horse because he sounded like he was related to them. The Kotulakovas are third-year business information students at Galway's Atlantic Technological University , now doing internships locally with Boston Scientific. Twins Rebeka and Radka Kotulakova, from Slovakia, at the opening night of the Galway Races. Photograph: Frank McNally Identical twins, they differed only when asked their age. 'Twenty three,' Rebeka said. 'Twenty four,' Radka suggested. Under further questioning, it emerged that like most twins they had in fact been born in the same year, but in August, so that, as they ultimately agreed in a joint statement, they are about to turn 24. The identical looks explained their outfits, among the most elegant on the racecourse amid stiff competition, although ladies day is not until Thursday. They wore also-identical Edwardian-style boating hats and dresses, except that Rebekah's ensemble was black with white ribbons while Radka's was white with black. If they'd come later in the week (which they can't), The Irish Times suggested, they might have made history as the first joint winners of the best dressed lady competition. Alas, it was their debut visit to the festival and nobody had told them about lady's day in time. Also unfortunately, Rakki's co-ordination did not quite match theirs. He could finish only a distant third, while a 10-1 shot named Jerrari won well, to quieter cheers than those for Davy Crockett. There was more pain for the bookies in the third, but Aidan O'Brien's Constitutional River went to the starting at intimidatingly thin odds that meant you had to risk €5 on him to win one. Then came the event bookmakers really dread: a horse that, wearing the green-and-gold of JP McManus, starts at long odds which then shrink under an avalanche of bets. Filey Bay was backed in from 16-1 to 7-1 while the bookies trembled. And even more than usually afterwards, McManus's shy smile looked like that of the cat that got the cream. There was some poignancy in the result, too, however. The winning jockey was Alan O'Sullivan, a younger brother of the late Michael, who died days short of his 25th birthday last February after a fall in a race at Thurles .
The 42
12 hours ago
- The 42
Veteran Dutch rider Vos takes overall leader's jersey at Women's Tour de France
VETERAN DUTCH RIDER Marianne Vos took the overall leader's jersey in the women's Tour de France after finishing second behind compatriot Lorena Wiebes on the third stage. Three-time former world champion Vos, 38, moved six seconds ahead of Mauritius' Kim Le Court in the general classification after a flat 163.5km ride from La Gacilly to Angers in western France. France's Olympic cross-country champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot completed the top three, 12 seconds behind, with last year's Tour winner Katarzyna Niewiadoma fourth. Ireland's Lara Gillespie finished in 22nd place while Mia Griffin came home in 31st, and Fiona Mangan was 71st. Mangan leads the way for the Irish in the general classification in 102nd place while Gillespie is 112th with Griffin two places back. Advertisement The trio have made history for Ireland by becoming the first women to represent the country on the Tour de France. One-day expert Vos has made an impressive start to this year's edition of the Tour, having won Saturday's opening stage in Vannes. Despite her incredible list of achievements, including 2012′s Olympic gold, the women's Giro d'Italia and countless Classic success, she has yet to win the Tour, but wore the yellow jersey in 2022 for five days. The end of the stage on the banks of the Loire river, best known for wine production, was marred by a crash as pre-stage favourite Demi Vollering fell. Vollering, who finished second overall last year, remains fifth in the overall standings despite the incident. After the crash, two-time former European champions Wiebes, 26, held on to secure her fourth Tour stage win, adding to her 15 success so far this season. Tuesday's fourth of nine stages on the fourth edition of the women's Tour is another flat ride, stretching 130.7km south from Saumur, also on the Loire river, to Poitiers. – © AFP 2025 Additional reporting by Sinéad Farrell
