‘This yellow jersey is unbelievable’ – Ben Healy takes Tour de France race lead in Massif Central

by July 14, 2025

written by July 14, 2025

‘This yellow jersey is unbelievable’ – Ben Healy takes Tour de France race lead in Massif Central

Ben Healy was speechless on Bastille Day as his Tour de France got even better in the Massif Central. After winning the stage solo into Vire Normandie four days ago, the Irishman took over the race lead from Tadej Pogačar after a gruelling ride in the breakaway on the 2025 Tour’s first mountain stage – won by Simon Yates.

When a breakaway formed early on in the stage, EF Education-EasyPost made sure they were well represented in the move with Neilson Powless, Harry Sweeny, Alex Baudin and Healy himself all present. Healy and EF boss Jonathan Vaughters heaped praise on the other riders afterwards, with Sweeny getting a notable mention for a huge turn alongside Healy to ensure the group maintained their advantage over the peloton before Healy went solo.

“I think both mean a lot in different ways,” he added, when asked to compare the joy of pulling on yellow with taking the stage six honours. “This yellow jersey is more for the team, they really had to work hard for me today to put me in that position. The stage win was the first goal and the yellow jersey feels like a bonus. I have to go with the stage win [as the most memorable] but this yellow jersey is unbelievable.”

“It was tense there for a long time,” Vaughters said. “At one point we had to make a definitive call as to whether to play for the stage, which would have been totally different with four riders in the break, or if we were going to gamble at all and go all in for the yellow jersey. This is the luxury of having won a stage because we said, ‘well we’ve won a stage, so let’s try to get the yellow.”

“We were pretty damn scared when Visma started accelerating the race,” he said. “UAE were riding a tempo, but I don’t think they were overly fussed about giving the jersey away. Visma, I don’t exactly ever understand what Visma does, they were doing something trying to get rid of Pogačar but that didn’t work and it brought the gap down. That’s what hammered the gap down and so we were pretty worried.”

Vaughters admitted that he was emotional when the team knew the yellow jersey was in the bag. “I almost choked up right there,” he went on. “It was beautiful and everyone deserves big kudos on this. Harry Sweeney was worth probably two minutes of that gap today. After that Alex Baudin kind of finished off the job and then ultimately Ben had to ride the last 15km by himself because no one [else in the break] was helping him. No one was even thinking about helping him.

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‘This yellow jersey is unbelievable’ – Ben Healy takes Tour de France race lead in Massif Central

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