Stephen Roche knows what it's like to stand on the Tour de France podium pulling on the iconic yellow jersey for the first time; exhausted, exilerated and nervous all at once.
He told stickybottle he had been "blown away" by the manner of Ben Healy's stage 6 win on the Tour last Thursday and was "mesmorised" to see the 24-year-old come out swinging again yesterday, this time for the yellow jersey.
"What a performance it was," Roche said of the EF Education-EasyPost Irish rider on stage 10. "There's no beating around the bush, no luck involved here. It was sheer sweat, tears and blood. He did everything perfectly.
"It's okay to have somebody in your ear on race radio telling you 'OK you're up on Pogacar, you can go for the jersey now'. But you have to be able to do it yourself. He's a bit of a hipster, I think, but he knows what he wants and he has the legs to cover what he wants. He's a real trier and he's a hard, hard grafter."
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"There was nobody hanging around on that stage, there was nobody smiling down the back. It was definitely a very, very hard stage," said Roche of a day on the infamous dead roads of the Massif Central on the 165km race to Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy.
"And it's been a very hard Tour so far. Even those flatter stages, they take an awful lot out of you with all the nervouness. You're on the brakes all the time, all the road furniture… it takes a lot out of you. But Ben has had this incredible reovery over these 10 stages, incredible."
Roche said in recent years he had, at times, been worried about the manner of Healy's riding. He suggested it was perhaps too aggressive, leaving results behind for want of directing his abilities with more precision.
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But now he sees a stronger and more experienced rider, who remains aggressive but who is directing his attacks more expertly towards big results and securing bigger returns.
"To come out again today and do what he did again… He's a champion, an extraordinary rider," Roche said. "Riding the way he rode today on the front of that group… and you have to remember he's still only a young guy in cycling terms… It was really, really unbelievable, there's no other words for it."
Roche said when he won the Tour in 1987, and obviously wore the yellow jersey into Paris, he would have thought Irish cycling wouldn't face a wait of almost four decades before another Irishman pulled on the maillot jaune.
"We've had a lot of very good riders who have come and gone since then who haven't done it," he said. "But, nevertheless, it's great that someone else has finally come along and done it. Ben's life has changed now forever.
"It doesn't matter how long he keeps the yellow jersey for, or doesn't keep it. This will change his life in every way. People will see him differently now. He's probably regarded as a bit of a hipster, and a 'shoot from the hip guy'.
"But he's dominant; the way he won the stage the other day, the way he came out and took the jersey in that aggressive style.
"I'm following the French reporters on this and they're all saying 'why can't this guy ride for the general classification now'. So that's how people will see him now. I'm really excited for the guy."
