Tom Southam, Ben Healy's directeur sportif at EF Education-EasyPost praises the Irish rider’s two victories and his ‘killer instinct’
By Shane Stokes
Ben Healy’s two wins in the past fortnight have resulted in a serious vote of confidence from his EF Education-EasyPost team, with directeur sportif Tom Southam hailing a big jump in form this year and saying further improvement is on the cards.
Healy took his first win as a WorldTour pro on March 23rd when he won stage three of the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali on May 23rd. Just three days later he followed that up with victory number two in the GP Industria & Artigianato, underlining his superb physical condition and improving confidence.
“Ben has done great,” Southam told stickybottle this week. “He started the year well, taking third in Mallorca. That ride itself was pretty mind blowing, because Alaphilippe and co were almost back on and Ben basically pulled the group away. It was one of those exceptional performances that we know he can do. Immediately everyone could see that he was on a higher level than last year. He’d gone away, done his homework, and he pushed himself to improve through the offseason.
Advertisement
“His two wins are hugely significant. Coppi Bartali is not a WorldTour level race, the field is different. But you’ve got to go there and win these races to learn how to do that, [particularly] if you’re going to be a rider who later wins bigger races.”
Healy showed his class in on stage three of the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali, surging clear on a short, steep climb 16 kilometres from the finish in Forlì, and being joined by his Ukrainian EF Education-EasyPost teammate Mark Padun and Italian climbing specialist Domenico Pozzovivo.
He beat both of them in a sprint on the Forlì velodrome, leading out the gallop from a long way and taking the win.
He then underlined his current form by attacking on the final climb of the GP Industria & Artigianato last Sunday and soloing to the finish.
Southam said that breaking his duck with his first success paved the way for his subsequent victory. “I think that first win under his belt gave much more confidence, putting his hand up at Larciano [the start/finish town for the GP Industria & Artigianato – ed.] and saying, ‘no, I’m good today, let’s all ride in to the final climb and I am going to do it from there.’”
Southam sees this as a very important step to a big career. “Let’s say if we had asked him to win Dwars Door Vlaanderen, it’s a much bigger ask and it’s going to take a lot longer for that to happen. So those wins…even though hopefully he will look back at the end of his career and considers them to be smallish wins [compared to later results – ed.] I think they’re going to be super important ones. I think the first pro win is, of course, important, because some guys never even get to that point.”
"He's taken a big step forward"
Healy’s two recent victories are all the more significant in light of his crash in the Etoile de Bessèges, which resulted in a fractured finger. That saw the 22 year old out of competitive action for seven weeks, and could have led to a longer period of time trying to retain race fitness.
The opposite happened; he returned to competition and immediately showed form.
“He went away and worked hard in that time away,” Southam said. “We were talking the other day and he said to me you can either deal with it mentally like, ‘oh, this is going to be terrible,’ or you can just knuckle down, and he did that. He came back in his first race and took two wins in a week. So you can’t grumble.
“He’s clearly physically at a higher level than he was last year. And I think he’s really proof of someone who, as an amateur, obviously hadn’t done absolutely everything to become a pro. So he had and still has room to grow. He wasn’t the finished article at 20 years of age. If he was he could only then get sort of incremental gains over the years. Instead he’s taken a big step forward. And for us, it’s great.”
Healy is still very young and has only been a WorldTour professional for just over one season. Does Southam believe his improvements are down to these two factors, getting older and gaining more experience, or did he do other things during the off season to help him advance?
“It’s a bit of both,” Southam answered. “I think he’s committed to improving his diet. He’s lost some weight, which definitely helps, in the right way. And it’s good that he still had that weight, in a way, that he could lose. He wasn’t already totally shredded when he came to us, which means there was that area for growth. That’s something he’s worked on, and he’s come back [this season] with.
“He’s worked on various different aspects of his racing and his mental approach to racing as well. So it’s a number of things, not specifically going out and doing more efforts or doing those efforts he used to do at 5% or 10%, harder or going out for half an hour longer. It’s an accumulation of doing the diet better, thinking through the races better, understanding a bit more which races are going to suit him. Because last year, we gave him a program, we basically said you’re going to do a bit of everything, and then come back to us and tell us what you’re drawn to, where you can be good.
Related News
“He’s obviously worked a lot on his time trialling, he does a lot on his position. So all that kind of stuff has been added in to his improved performance.”
Another factor has now added to that growing momentum, something which was in evidence for his most recent win. Namely, that success can breed success, that an increased self-belief can make further big results more likely.
Southam said that this was crucial in his most recent race.
“As his confidence grows, he’s starting to understand that he can doesn’t have to necessarily be in an early break to win a race, which we saw at Larciano [the start/finish town of GP Industria & Artigianato – ed.]. Because UAE turned up fresh to that race after we’d raced all week at Coppi Bartalli. They had a good team with Ulissi and Hirschi, and Ben basically rode them off the wheel.
“So I think that’s been really good for his confidence, because, before he had always been aggressive, and sometimes that aggression comes out from, ‘oh, I’d better get myself in front before the action starts.’”
As Southam suggests, Healy doesn’t need to rely on that any more. He’s stronger physically and mentally than he used to be, and that should give him more tactical options when he lines out in races.
What does the future hold?
At 22 years of age, Healy could and should keep improving physiologically for at least another five years. He’ll understand more about himself as time passes and, in doing his first Grand Tour this year, should also develop a much greater endurance and ability to recover.
The big question is, what kind of rider will he become as the years progress? Southam said much needs to be determined, but that initial signs are encouraging.
“I think he can do a lot. We got quite excited when we saw him in the cobbled races last year. So that is something he can do. I think you will have seen how certain types of cobbled races are going more in the favour of the lighter, sort of climber guys. And Ben is actually emerging as I think a stronger climber than we originally thought.
“He’s obviously a good time triallist. I think he’s definitely got stage races in the wheelhouse. We don’t yet know how long those are going to be. But with his time trial… For example, in Coppi Bartali, he wasn’t in the decisive move. But we still knew that he had his time trial in his back pocket. And of the favourites, he was the fastest of the GC guys by a considerable margin.
Healy finished third in that concluding race against the clock, beaten only by Rémi Cavagna (Soudal – Quick Step) and Michael Hepburn (Jayco AlUla), neither of whom were in contention for the general classification. That saw him jump from sixth to third overall in the GC, and gives Southam belief that he can achieve similar sorts of performances in bigger events.
So what’s next for him? Healy will be back in action in the Région Pays de la Loire Tour, which runs from Tuesday April 4th until Friday April 7th. Southam believes he could be ‘highly competitive’ in this race.
He is then listed for the Amstel Gold Race on April 16th, and will start the Giro d’Italia on May 6th. This will be the first three week race of his career and, as Southam notes, it is Healy’s big aim for this season. Encouragingly, Southam believes that missing races due to his broken finger should give him an element of mental freshness for that Grand Tour.
Riding the Italian event will be an important milestone in Healy’s career. However Southam cautions that riding one such race is not enough to make predictions about his future direction.
“In your first Grand Tour, you are going to try different things. I think it’ll give him a bit of an idea, but I don’t think we’ll be able to nail down 100% exactly who he is until perhaps he’s done his second one,” he explained.
“The goals for him are going to be to try to win a stage, for example. If he goes for that, obviously we’re not going to see how far he can go in the classification yet. We’ll see how he goes with this one first.”
Still, chasing the general classification in Grand Tours isn’t being ruled out. “He could definitely be a GC rider in hilly races,” he said. “I think three week riders are something else…it is a huge question mark at the moment, because he’s never done one. So we’ll have to see how that goes first.
“But definitely, I think he can emerge into that sort of rider. He’s also got the killer instinct to win one day races as well.”
