Brilliant Ben Healy takes fabled yellow jersey as overall leader at the Tour de France
Healy will wear the leader's fabled yellow jersey — becoming the first Irishman to hold the honour since Stephen Roche won the race in 1987.
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The 24-year-old started Monday's Bastille Day stage 3:55 behind three-time champion Tadej Pogacar in the general classification standings, but finished the 165.3 km ride from Ennezat to Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy 4:20 ahead of the Slovenian star.
Healy, who already made his mark on this year's tour in winning Thursday's sixth stage, was firmly in contention for a second stage right until the final kilometres.
In the end, Simon Yates pulled clear to win the stage with Thymen Arensman in second and a battling Healy 31 seconds back in third.
Healy now leads the general classification standings by 29 seconds from Pogacar, with Belgium's Remco Evenepoel in third, 1:29 behind Healy.
Healy becomes the fourth Irish rider to wear Tour de France yellow, following Shay Elliott, Sean Kelly and Roche.
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The 42
41 minutes ago
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Scheffler's press conference answer goes viral and leaves rivals facing deep and difficult questions
IT WAS JUST past 11am when we gathered at the feet of Scottie Scheffler for another sermon on the mount. (The mount in this case being a mounted table in front of rows of seated hacks beneath a canvas roof rippling and wobbling in the wind.) During the course of a magnetic press conference, Scheffler was asked about the books he read, and revealed he really only leafs through the Bible. That a professional golfer would speak openly about their belief in God is not unusual, but it's still a rarity when compared to the number of golfers who take an interest solely in whether God believes in them. Scheffler's faith is often cited by pundits trying to explain his astonishing consistency: yes, Scottie has the talent, but his belief imbues him with a serenity that forestalls the kind of mental frazzling that compounds errors and ruins scorecards. Whatever the truth in that – like all religion-based philosophies, nobody will be around to verify or rebuke it when they find out whether it was true all along – it has given Scheffler an interesting perspective away from the course, which he shared with us in a fascinating, five-minute disquisition in response to a fairly banal question asking him for how long he typically celebrates success. (Similar questions this week went to Xander Schauffele and Shane Lowry – Xander hinted he didn't drink as much as the Irish would, while Lowry gave the impression of being highly irked by this Stateside stereotyping of him as some kind of pint-swilling, ballad-belting craic merchant.) Scottie Scheffler just gave one of the best (and deepest) press conference answers ever heard. — Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) July 15, 2025 Scottie somehow took things in an altogether different direction. First he mentioned the The CJ Cup Byron Nelson title he won in Texas in May, a tournament frankly everyone in the room forgot he had won. 'To win the Byron Nelson Championship at home, I literally worked my entire life to become good at golf to have an opportunity to win that tournament', he said. 'You win it, you celebrate, get to hug my family, my sister's there, it's such an amazing moment. Then it's like, okay, what are we going to eat for dinner? Life goes on.' Advertisement Scottie went on too. 'Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about because I've literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport. 'To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I'm not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I'm not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world because what's the point?' This was a delightful antidote to the LIV Tour defectors who dressed up their greed beneath the thin veneer of horseshit that was their scripted claim that they were motivated to Grow The Game. But stick with us – we're not even at the best part. 'This is not a fulfilling life. It's fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart. 'There's a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life, and you get there, you get to No. 1 in the world, and they're like what's the point?' Scheffler went on to say he finds true fulfillment in fatherhood and family, and yet golf still has an oppressive hold on his emotions. 'That's something that I wrestle with on a daily basis. It's like showing up at the Masters every year; it's like why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly? Why do I want to win The Open Championship so badly? I don't know because, if I win, it's going to be awesome for two minutes.' A few observations. Firstly, Scheffler has been on the island of Samuel Beckett for all of five minutes and already he's wrangling with grand existentialism. We're not talking about any inward crisis of identity, by the way. Scottie might be aware that golf delivers nothing but a terrifyingly fleeting joy, but the fact he can say this out loud while talking about the importance of family means, really, he has it all sussed. No, Scheffler's comments implicated and tangled everyone else into these deep and terrifying questions. The sportswriters sitting in front of him, for one, given we spend ing our working days carving great arcs of failure and redemption, adjusting their angles, slopes and contours for whomever is sitting in front of us. That the world's best golfer would blithely tell us that all the sincere meaning and cheap drama with which we freight his sporting events is illusionary is, of course, deeply, deeply chastening. But a sportswriter having an identity crisis is routine and uninteresting. What must Scheffler's competitors have made of this? They do not win as often as Scheffler, and yet they have to work as hard as he does to merely stand still. Scheffler's rivals have to find a reason to work that hard, and so they invest the struggle with a kind of dignity and sanctify their daily grind, telling themselves that one day, all of this hard work will ultimately be worth it. This is ironically quite a religious angle to take to life, to act in anticipation of a final gratification that may never come. Given the level of absorption necessary for this kind of business, its hard not to allow it seep into all realms of your life. 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The Journal
an hour ago
- The Journal
How Ben Healy - grandson of Irish immigrants - made sporting history at the Tour de France
IN JUNE 2020 in the south Limerick hillside village of Knockaderry, a slight framed English accented Irish man smashed a field of the country's best home and international cyclists to take the national title. Just days before, riding in the colours of the Andrew McQuaid managed development team Trinity Racing, he took the Time Trial title. For many in Irish cycling it was the first sign that there was a significant new talent on the scene. Nicolas Roche, the son of Dundrum's former Tour de France winner Stephen, finished second to him. This reporter attempted to interview Roche afterwards who was visibly enraged at the defeat while, across the road, the 20-year-old rider, Ben Healy, was light and welcoming, speaking fluidly about his delight to be Irish champ. He had previously won the Time Trial title at junior level but his win at senior was a masterclass in the style of racing he is now famous for – a swashbuckling tactic of aggressive attacks from the pack. It may have been shock news of this new talent for some in Ireland but on the continent Healy was already on his way to stardom. The Tour de l'Avenir, translated as Tour of the Future, is the world's premier contest for young riders – it is a mini Tour De France raced at under 23 level and some of the legends of cycling first proved their worth there. Healy did just that in 2018, taking the Queen Stage, or hardest stage of the race – it brought him to the attention of the cycling scouts – this was a talent to keep an eye on. He has returned to Ireland to compete in the annual return of professionals from abroad for the National Championships and performed well in all outings – winning it a second time in 2023. He has not just the aggressive exciting style of the road but also in the race of truth or Time Trial discipline – it makes him perfect for long range attacks. Ben Healy leads Darnel Moore at Knockaderry in 2020 en route to his first senior National Road Title. Niall O'Connor / The Niall O'Connor / The / The The Irish connection He has a soft British midlands accent but he is the latest in a small but impressive group of Irish racing cyclists brought up in Britain that have sided with the country from which their relatives emigrated. There are others who took the same nationality option, most notably two time Tour de France stage winner Dan Martin, and national champions Conor Dunne and Matt Brammeier. Some did so out of patriotic interest, others for pragmatic cycling career opportunities because it opens the door to competitions – fewer riders to compete with for places. Either way Ben Healy declared for Ireland in 2016 as a teenager using the fact that his grandparents were Irish. Healy's connections to Ireland are on his father's side. Bryan Healy was born in England to parents from Waterford and Cork. They moved as economic migrants to London in the 1960s in search of work. Ben was born in 2000 and grew up in Wordsley near Birmingham where his racing cyclist father introduced him to the sport. Advertisement According to an interview with Velo magazine in 2023 he caught the bug at a local track where he spent Sunday morning sessions with his pals. In the same interview he explained that while at the beginning it was about the pragmatic nature of gaining an advantage he now delights in the Irish connection. 'I am super proud to represent that side of me,' he told Velo. 'My identity with Ireland has really grown. For sure I was a bit of an outsider within the cycling community in Ireland at first, but after a while, I started to make a few friends. 'There is still occasionally a bit of a backlash, I guess, but I really do feel welcomed and accepted, which is super nice. Now some of my really good friends within the sport are Irish. We've got a bit of a routine of going to Belfast post-season and then getting together, which is great,' he added. Ben Healy wears the coveted Tour de France yellow jersey on the podium yesterday. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Success The wins kept coming after he was the youngest rider, at just 18-years-old, to win a stage in the talent spotting Tour de l'Avenir. Since then it has been a steady escalating evolution of success with wins across the season under the tutelage of Trinity Racing. He then signed in 2022 for the EF procycling set up which is now EF Education Easy Post. It was set up by anti-doping campaigner and ex cyclist Jonathan Vaughters in the wake of the Lance Armstrong scandal. This is the team where he has remained since taking major wins at the Giro d'Italia, the three week stage race that is the Italian equivalent of the Tour de France. Last year at the Olympics he led the road race across the streets of Paris for much of the spectacle in a daring and tenacious effort but his hopes were dashed and Belgian Remco Evanepoel overtook him as he tired. He has also finished on the podium of early season classics, or monuments as they are known, and is fast growing a reputation as one of the world's great puncheurs and baroudeur – cycling terms for a rider who excels over short sharp climbs on daring attacks from the peloton. It was over that very terrain and using those tactics that saw him take the Tour de France stage across the rolling and steep hills of Normandy last Thursday. 'Le Tour' is a three week event raced over multiple days in which there is a stage winner each day and an overall winner who has the least amount of time across the course. Yesterday, on a route across the French Massif Central Healy achieved a feat not seen since Stephen Roche in 1987 – he became only the fourth Irish man to take the coveted Yellow Jersey of race leader. He will likely wear it until the coming mountain stages when the big General Classification guns of Tadej Pogacar, Remco Evanepoel and Jonas Vingegaard leave the phony war of the first week behind and begin the Alpine battles for the title. Healy will likely revert back to his swashbuckling antics and join the daily lonely breakaway hunts for another stage win. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘I want to honour the jersey as best I can': Ben Healy relishing stint in Tour de France yellow
Ben Healy is down to earth and not prone to looking for attention, but when it came to the rest day of the Tour de France , he wasn't going to pass up an opportunity. Asked by The Irish Times if he wore the race leader's distinctive jersey on his rest day training ride, his face breaks into a smile. 'Of course!' he replied. 'Maximising the time in the yellow jersey. 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.' Thus far the riders have racked up 1,700 draining kilometres but, as ever, taking an actual rest on the rest day is not an option. Muscles tighten up and systems slow down if the tour's competitors don't keep moving, and so Healy and the rest of his EF Education EasyPost team clocked up 60 kilometres on a training ride Tuesday morning. READ MORE '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,' he said. 'I'm just soaking it all up while I can.' Healy's Tour is just 10 days in but has exceeded his expectations thus far. Winning stage 6 last Thursday with a masterful solo move was the best result yet of his career. Taking yellow on Monday was, by his own admission, something he hadn't anticipated, the stuff of dreams. Ben Healy celebrates on the podium with the yellow leader's jersey during the 10th stage of the Tour de France cycling race from Ennezat to Le Mont Dore Puy de Sancy. Photograph: Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA And lining out in the race leader's jersey when the race restarts on Wednesday will be something he'll remember for the rest of his life. 'It's going to be phenomenal. Honestly,' he said. 'My family's flying out, and my girlfriend's here now as well. To have everyone there who means so much to me and who got me to where I am ... that's going to be a super special day. 'I just want to honour the jersey the best I possibly can do. 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.' Ben Healy anticipates the days ahead will be a big test for him. Photograph: Gruber Images/EF Education EasyPost Wednesday's stage takes the riders on a demanding hilly route in and around Toulouse . Thursday's race to the summit of the Pyrenean climb of Hautacam is far harder again and, with triple tour winner Tadej Pogacar lurking just 29 seconds back, many anticipate that he will take over. Indeed, the Slovenian was promising an aggressive showing during his own rest day press conference. 'I'm really looking forward to the climb to Hautacam and the climbing time trial [on Friday]. Those two stages are key for me,' Pogacar said on Tuesday. 'We sit good on the GC and we are ready to attack the mountains.' Healy anticipates the days ahead will be a big test for him. 'If Tadej is out to take revenge against Jonas [Vingegaard] from a couple years ago, then I imagine there's going to be fireworks there. I've just got to do my best effort to the top and hope it's enough,' Healy said. 'But you can't overlook tomorrow, either. It's a pretty tricky finish and with small roads and short kickers [hills] really close to the finish, it's definitely a stage you have to be wary of.' I really enjoy the sort of racing that I'm doing at the moment. The goals that I have are still pretty fresh Still just 24 years of age, Healy is riding his second tour. The talented English-born Irishman has taken 10 professional wins during his five pro seasons but has never targeted the general classification in a race like this. He knows and accepts that winning it outright is a long shot. But even if contending for the final yellow jersey could take many years of hard work, he's determined give everything he's got in the remaining week-and-a-half of this tour. 'I need to really see where I'm at in the big mountains,' he said. 'I would love to say that I want to target a podium, or top five, something like this, but I have no real track record in racing for a GC.' Ben Healy after stage 10 of the 2025 Tour de France on Monday. Photograph: David Pintens/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images He's loving his time in yellow but the pressure is off. This edition of the tour is all about pushing his limits, understanding what is possible, and trying to achieve as much as he can – whether that's a high general classification placing or chasing more stage wins. The beauty about his situation is that he already relishes being a plucky stage hunter. Anything more this early in his career is a bonus. 'Like I said before, I really enjoy the sort of racing that I'm doing at the moment. The goals that I have are still pretty fresh,' he said. 'I still have things that I want to tick off as well, while I'm not going for GC. [ The Tour de France's version of VAR? Get ready for yellow card controversy Opens in new window ] 'So yeah, definitely one day it might take a turn, but for now, I'm pretty happy going for stages and targeting these one-day races. Just continuing as I have been.' He won't shy away from yellow, of course, but he's not going to let it change him either. Healy paid for all of his team-mates' coffees and cakes on Tuesday's rest day cafe ride. He'll remain fully down to earth whatever way this tour turns out.
