Ben Healy has been forced out of his biggest week of racing in the first half of the season following a delayed diagnosis of a bone fracture (Photo: Gabriele Mancini)
Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) has just 16 days of racing in his legs to far this season and now, having sustained a fracture that has forced him out of competition, he expects to ride just one race before going back to the Tour de France.
It's a measure of how quickly racing blocks pass that three to four weeks out of racing, because of his lingering crash injury, means Healy will only be getting back into competition when the Tour looms.
He crashed on his opening stage TT recon ride the week before last at Itzulia Basque Country (2.UWT). Though he pressed on and rode the full race, quite aggressively, he has since been diagnosed with a undisplaced sacrum, or tailbone, fracture.
And that means he's out of the Ardennes Classics, and out of competition for three to four weeks, which has implications for a rider aiming towards the Tour.
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“It’s gutting,” he said of missing the Ardennes. "I’ve just got to roll with the punches. I’m trying not to think about it too much, but it’s going to suck to watch the Ardennes and not be a part of it. That’s bike racing. It just is what it is.
“At Itzulia, I thought I was getting better throughout the race, and I thought not too much damage was done. It wasn’t really until I got home that it really started to give me some grief.
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"Since getting home from Itzulia, I haven’t been able to ride. Obviously, we needed to find out what was causing the pain. That’s why we went and got the scan in the end.
“The bone that I fractured is a pretty insignificant bone, so as soon as I don’t have pain, then I should be able to ride as I wish. It’s the pain that we’re worried about and the risk that I could give myself a secondary injury.
"As soon as there’s no pain, then hopefully we’ll be on track for the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the Tour. We just need to see how recovery goes first.”
Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is the new name for Critérium du Dauphiné (2.UWT), which takes place this year from June 7th to 14th. The Tour starts two weeks later, on July 4th.
Healy won a stage at last year's Tour and also held the leader's yellow jersey for two days, the first time an Irish rider has led the race since Stephen Roche's win in 1987.
However, though the injury is a setback, it is not complex. And once Healy is pain free, he will be back training hard with plenty of time to prepare for the Tour, which is 10 weeks away.
Healy missing the Ardennes Classics is frustrating as he broke through there in 2023. He took 2nd at Amstel Gold Race (1.UWT) and 4th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège (1.UWT).
Last season he was 10th at Amstel Gold Race, 5th at La Flèche Wallonne (1.UWT) and 3rd in Liège, his first monument podium.
