Ben Healy with EF Education-EasyPost team mate, and yellow jersey, Alex Baudin during today's stage 2 at Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (Photo: Gaëtan Flamme)
Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) may have been talking down his chances, at least for the general classification, before the start of Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, but the Irish rider has jumped straight back into the thick of it after a two-month injury-related absence.
He was attacking off the front on the opening phase of yesterday's very difficult stage 1, and was on the front again today, saying he felt good, adding: "Hopefully I can do something by the end of the week”.
"It's good to be back. It's been a long time since I raced and I'm happy to be here. Fortunately, it wasn't too much of a serious injury and I haven't missed any prep for the Dauphine or the Tour."
He was referring to the non-displaced sacral fracture he sustained when he hit a woman crossing the road on the route of the TT recon ride at Itzulia Basque Country (2.UWT) in early April.
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Charmig on the front of the breakaway, driving the pace, on today's stage 2, which he won with a solo attack (Photo: Gaëtan Flamme)
"I should be in good shape (this week) hopefully. I always take a race to warm up, normally, so don't expect anything amazing from me, I guess.
"I think it's just going to be a super hard Dauphine and hopefully I can be good by the end. I think I'm in pretty good shape and hopefully I can do something by the end of the week."
Healy was notably active on at the start of Sunday's opening stage, trying to get in the breakaway as part of his team's plan to get riders into the early move as they suspected a breakaway would stick.
"We went full gas for the breakaway and we believed it could stay away, we were all over it from the start and we managed to get two in there," he said of the opening of stage 1, when Baudin got into the winning move with team mate Alastair MacKellar.
French phenom Paul Seixas is the big draw this week, especially for the host nation, hoping to win this race on his way to a Tour de France debut aged just 19 (Photo: Gaëtan Flamme)
Healy added having two riders in the move was "a perfect situation" and he was "so happy" to see Baudin win according to the team's "plan from the start, perfectly executed".
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From his own perspective, he said though he normally takes a day or two to warm up whenever he hasn't race for a while, he was quite happy with his start to the race.
"It went better than I thought, to be honest. I had a good start and then I pulled the pin on the (last) climb," he explained of stage 1, after finishing 44th, at 2:36, after 3,200m of climbing.
"But there are definitely some breakaway days to come for me personally I guess."
On today's stage 2 - some 234km from Saint-Martin-le-Vinoux to Le Puy-en-Velay with almost 4,000m of climbing - a breakaway once again went all the way. Anthon Charmig (Uno-X Mobility) attacked from the move to win solo.
Healy was on the front of the bunch, especially in the last 20km, keeping the pace high to ensure the breakaway's advantage was narrowed enough for team mate Baudin to keep the yellow jersey, which he did.
Healy then pulled the plug towards the finish and crossed the line in 89th some 10:33 down.
Dillon Corkery (Picnic PostNL) was 145th on the opening stage, at 24:09, and was 134th today in a large group at 13:47.
However, the terrain on these opening two days was not suited to Corkery - a powerful classics-style rider at home in sprints and on cobbles.
That power he packs will be useful tomorrow, Tuesday, when the riders tackle a 28.4km team time trial in Perreux.
With six stages remaining, Baudin continues to lead the race overall by 32 seconds from the group of nine that sprinted for 2nd on the opening stage.
