Tour de France stage six: Solo masterclass from Healy, Americans in the break, Van der Poel back in yellow by a second

New York Times

3 days ago

Ben Healy of EF Education-Easypost won a furiously-contested stage six at the 2025 Tour de France on Thursday, attacking from a group of eight riders with 41 kilometres remaining and soloing to the finish in Vire Normandie.
The rolling terrain was always going to tempt the peloton's breakaway artists and, with so many of them interested, it took almost 100km for the day's escape to finally become established, a high-quality selection containing riders such as Mathieu van der Poel, Michael Storer, Giro d'Italia winner Simon Yates and the American pair of Quinn Simmons and Will Barta.
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With Tadej Pogacar's UAE Emirates team happy to let the breakaway fight among themselves for victory, it was Healy who seized the opportunity, and although Storer and Simmons tried to bridge the gap, the Irishman proved too strong.
Jack Lang and Jacob Whitehead break down a breathless day of action in Normandy.
ITS PODIUM TIME BABYYYY#efprocycling #tdf2025 pic.twitter.com/2x6tRpyq7c
— EF Pro Cycling (@EFprocycling) July 10, 2025
Find all of The Athletic's Tour de France coverage here
'He's a one-trick pony, but it's a bloody good trick,' said a member of EF-Education First's staff with 30 kilometres left.
Ben Healy loves breakaways. Ben Healy loves attacking with 40km to go. And here he was, soloing to the biggest win of his career, with less than an hour's riding left.
After losing Richard Carapaz to a stomach bug, the American squad's primary aim was stage wins. Lacking a sprinter and elite climber, bumpy days like today are EF's raison d'etre here.
Unfortunately for them, almost a dozen other teams had the same idea. It wasn't until 110km until the stage that the break was finally allowed to go — it felt like a blink after that before Healy attacked his fellow escapees on a gentle rise.
The Irishman has had good results before — a podium at Liege-Bastogne-Liege this season, a stage win at the Giro d'Italia in 2023 — but the Tour is a different beast.
Despite the energy burned during break formation, Healy grew stronger as the day grew on, and his chasers lost heart. He is a classic puncheur, at his best in this rolling terrain. With this in mind, it was startling that nobody from the breakaway group anticipated his attack — or perhaps more importantly — reacted quickly enough to prevent him building a race-winning lead.
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The location he attacked might have seemed random, but it had been specifically identified by Tom Southam, one of the team's directeur sportifs, as an ideal place for Healy to launch. 'He wanted to go in a technical spot somewhere with 40 to 60 kilometres remaining, to get a gap. They're not everywhere, so we just had to find the right one.'
⚠️ Ben Healy solo ride alert! The Irishman launched a blistering attack that left his breakaway companions stranded. He's already 25" ahead!
⚠️ Alerte numéro solitaire de Ben Healy ! L'Irlandais a placé une attaque foudroyante qui a laissé sur place ses compagnons d'échappée.… pic.twitter.com/nN0oF8flq6
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 10, 2025
At one point he had enough of a lead to take the white jersey, but the peloton's speed in the closing stages means it remains with Remco Evenepoel. That did not spoil the day for Healy, however.
'It's what I've worked for all my life. Not just this year, the whole time. It's incredible, just hours and hours of work from so many people,' he said post-stage. 'I think last year was a real eye opener and really made me believe that I could do it, and I just knuckled down and did the hard work to try and refine my racing style. Lots of race footage watched, and it really paid off today.
'I knew I had to get away from the group. I picked my moment and I think I timed it well and hopefully caught them by surprise a little bit. Then I knew what I had to do, just head down and do my best to ride to the finish.
'This was a stage I circled in the book from the start, so to do it on the first one is really amazing.'
🤩 That winning feeling! 🤩#TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/iSWPTtKCKC
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 10, 2025
Jacob Whitehead
Healy aside, the most active man in the early part of the race was Simmons. The Durango native is a hard man to ignore in the bunch at the best of times — not many riders have flowing, fire-red hair and a dirtbag moustache — but he was in full main-character mode here, powering into open space after the early sprint and not letting up until the break was clear.
Simmons was subsequently joined by one of his compatriots. Will Barta is a less showy presence but a solid operator in his own right: this is his first Tour but he once finished 22nd in the Vuelta a Espana and arrived in northern France off the back of impressive showings at Paris-Nice (15th) and the Tour de Suisse (12th). His presence meant that a quarter of the breakaway group was American.
In the end, Simmons' efforts would yield a second-placed finish. Barta would have to content himself with sixth. American viewers could also take a little pride in Healy's win. EF Education–EasyPost, after all, are based in Boulder, Colorado, not far from Simmons' hometown. Overall, it was a decent day out for the Tour's US delegation.
Jack Lang
'It will be my last day in yellow, I think,' Mathieu van der Poel said on Tuesday, ahead of the next day's time trial.
But that was Tuesday and here is Thursday, its sun setting with Van der Poel bathed in golden yellow once more, via a day's loan to Tadej Pogacar.
Van der Poel is a decisive rider, and it was no surprise that his choice of attack emerged into the breakaway that stayed clear of the peloton. For most of the stage, kept tightly leashed by the peloton, yellow was an afterthought. But with 60km left, and their chasers slowing easing, the jersey loomed back into view.
And if Van der Poel is anything in addition to decisive, he is an opportunist. Healy danced up the road, but Van der Poel was in his own race. And its toll on him grew deeper as each kilometre passed.
With his lineage, a legendary grandfather in Raymond Poulidor who never wore the maillot jaune, he knows it can never be taken for granted. Without helpers, alone in the 90-degree heat, he suffered for a jersey he could well lose tomorrow on the Mur-de-Bretagne. On the other hand, it is a finish he has won before (stage two in in 2021).
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And Van der Poel could do with the bonus seconds. His situation when he crossed the line? Back into yellow — by just a single second.
Jacob Whitehead
Today's parcours — 201.5km, more ups and downs than the life of your average yoyo — screamed only one thing: breakaway. After the complete non-event that was stage three, the onus was going to be on the getaway artists, those riders who like the wind in their hair and the peloton nibbling at their heels.
Would the big GC teams allow them the leeway? That much was not so clear. 'Every team in the race has to be creative to be able to win a stage like this,' said Sepp Kuss, implying that his Visma-Lease A Bike colleagues would also fancy getting into the mix.
Pavel Sivakov of UAE, meanwhile, made it clear that there would be no freebies on offer. 'The gaps are already quite big,' said the Frenchman. 'Even guys at three minutes (down) are still quite a risk. It's going to be about making sure no dangerous riders are jumping.'
It sounded like it would be a battle and so it proved. After the intermediate sprint, 22km in, the fun began. Ben Healy and Quinn Simmons attacked over the top of the fast men, establishing a 10-second gap. Neilson Powless had a look, as did Jack Haig and Conor Swift. Harold Tejada of XDS Astana bridged across, bringing Visma's Victor Campanaerts with him, before it all came back together over the first climb of the day.
Round two belonged to Wout van Aert. The Dutchman blasted away from a strong cluster, accompanied by Movistar's Pablo Castrillo. The pair of them strained but were only allowed a handful of seconds before another regrouping.
Gregor Muhlberger tried. So did Alex Baudin for a busy EF Education First. Simmons and Healy came back for another swing, bringing the GC contenders out over the Category 3 Cote de la Ranconniere. The pace was infernal. Most of the sprinters were already off the back. So, briefly, was Primoz Roglic, one of the pre-Tour favourites.
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Finally, fully 58km into the stage, a move stuck. Healy was there, still grinding away with his old pal Simmons. The latter was joined by his fellow American Will Barta of Movistar, with Mathieu van der Poel adding some extra star dust. Eddie Dunbar bridged over to double the Irish contingent.
Even then, the GC contenders did not sit up. Marc Soler kicked on for UAE. Visma's Simon Yates set such a high tempo that he eventually peeled off the front, dragging Michael Storer of Tudor along with him. Six became eight in the break.
That, belatedly, settled things down. The gap grew; the race took shape. The stress levels, though, remained in the legs and in the lungs for the remainder of the day. A lot of riders will be looking forward to getting horizontal in their hotel rooms tonight.
Jack Lang
Soccer fans of a certain vintage will fondly remember a Nike advert from the 1990s. It featured a picture of Eric Cantona, Manchester United's iconoclastic French forward. '1966 was a great year for English football,' ran the caption, gesturing at World Cup history before delivering its punchline: 'Eric was born.'
The ad came to mind as the riders rolled out of Bayeux this morning. The town is best known for the Bayeux Tapestry, a 70-metre-long cloth painstakingly embroidered with scenes from the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. It is a major cultural site in France, the kind of place that busloads of school kids travel to see every week of the year.
We know now that the town has a second claim to fame.
Yes, Bayeux is a town of huge importance to the French nation. It's where Kevin Vauquelin was born.
This was always going to be a red-letter day for France's new darling. Even yesterday, after the time trial, his excitement was already obvious. 'I'm on cloud nine,' he said. 'It's emotional riding on your home roads. It's a childhood dream; I want to pinch myself. My loved ones are also over the moon.'
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The first 15km were a Vauquelin fever dream. There were hundreds of signs in his honour. His name was scrawled all over the tarmac. At one point, the television camera alighted on a slightly blurry image of his face, in black and white. A poster? A billboard, maybe? No: the camera zoomed out to reveal a Kevin Vauquelin hot-air balloon, paid for by members of his fan club.
In the end, Vauquelin rolled over the line in 14th place. Still, this day will live long in his memory. And if he does go on to be the next great French superstar, maybe the Cantona/Bayeux analogy might not seem quite so tortured.
Jack Lang
The race reaches Brittany, often touted as the heartland of French cycling. The crowds will be big and enthusiastic, with the finish on the two-kilometre Mur-de-Bretagne a popular and spectacular feature of many modern Tours de France.