Onley and Blackmore lead the charge of young Britons at Tour de France

The Guardian

15-07-2025

For more than a decade, the interest in British riders racing in the Tour de France was focused on familiar names – Mark Cavendish, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas – but now a new generation of English-speaking talent is making its mark on the world's biggest race.
Ben Healy, West Midlands-born but with Irish heritage, has been the revelation of the Tour so far, and was fully rewarded for his unrelenting efforts with the yellow jersey of race leadership on the Bastille Day stage to Puy de Sancy.
Healy was briefly a teammate to Tom Pidcock as a teenager before shining as an under-23 rider. Success in the 'Baby Giro' in Italy drew him to the attention of the American team, EF Education-EasyPost.
More than his results, Healy's approach to racing, free of the risk-averse tactics of some predecessors, is refreshing and exciting. Unafraid to fail, his attacking style has sometimes fallen short, with a stage win in the 2023 Giro d'Italia the notable exception.
In this Tour, however, with victory in Vire and a yellow jersey just four days later, he has finally fulfilled his promise. His success has been Ineos Grenadiers' loss, as he is understood to have rejected an opportunity to move to the British team.
For Oscar Onley, currently seventh overall, his second Tour has been a world apart from his debut, in 2024, when he finished 39th. The 22-year-old from Kelso admitted that he was overwhelmed on his first appearance in the race. 'I really struggled during the first week,' he recalled. 'I was wondering: 'What am I doing here?''
This year, Onley is seventh overall as the race looks towards the Pyrenees. So far, he has coped much better, holding on to a high overall placing through one of the toughest and fastest opening weeks in Tour history. 'Once you're racing, it's just another bike race,' he said, 'but it's the scale of everything around it, the expectations, the media.'
His steady progression has been marked by stage wins in the 2025 Tour of Switzerland, second place overall in the Tour of Britain and third place overall in this year's Swiss national tour. Onley's team expects there may be a drop-off in his performances as he goes deeper into the Tour, the longest race he has ever ridden, but he is already looking further ahead.
'I rode Mont Ventoux recently for the first time, which may not be a good thing, but I'm looking forward to going there in the Tour.'
The Tour debutant Joe Blackmore cut his teeth at Herne Hill velodrome and, at 22, is another of those riding the longest race of his career.
His breakthrough win came in last year's Tour de l'Avenir, where his climbing skills came to the fore with a stage win at La Rosière and then a race-clinching performance on the Colle delle Finestre, coincidentally the platform for Simon Yates's race-winning coup in this year's Giro d'Italia.
Blackmore, currently 31st overall, lost some time after racing in the breakaway on stage 10, but may yet bounce back in the high mountains. 'It's a big, hard, fast race, but once you get going and focused and on the bike, you're just in the routine,' Blackmore said. 'I've had a few rough days, but enough days when I have felt fine. I haven't crashed yet, so I've been lucky.'
With Thursday's Pyrenean stage from Auch to Hautacam expected to live up to its billing, Blackmore is entering his preferred terrain. 'I'm looking forward to pushing on the climbs,' he said. 'It should be a different way of racing.'