Ben Healy climbs with GC group on Tour's last big finish to La Plagne | Video

Ben Healy has battled hard over the last couple of days at the Tour de France and looked stronger on the road to La Plagne today, climbing with the general classification group (Photo: Tim van Wichelen-Cor Vos)

Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) had to dig deep on yesterday's stage 18 at the Tour de France after going out the back of the reduced peloton on the Col de la Madeleine, almost 80km from the finish, but he looked stronger today.

Rather than riding his own race, as he did yesterday, Healy climbed in the general classification group today, when it was down to just seven riders. He stayed with the likes of race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) until the upper slopes of the La Plagne climb, the last summit finish of this race.

And when he was distanced by the top four overall, he was in the company of 5th and 6th placed on GC, Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility). From that point, Healy paced himself to the line, finishing 8th on the stage, at 2:19.

Advertisement

On a day when the top 10 overall very closely reflected the general classification, Healy finished 8th to hold his 9th place in the general standings. In doing so, he has confirmed - if confirmation was needed - his place among the top 10 strongest men on this race.

The Irish rider has gained time in several breakaways, including when he won stage 6 and took the yellow jersey on stage 10. However, his position in this general classification is based on his true place in the race, rather than resulting from any lucky break along the way.

Up front today, Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) attacked the select group with 14km to go, with Pogačar and Vingegaard reacting. However, the Dutchman, who had already won stage 14 to Superbagnères, soon went again, and this time got clear.

Behind him, the select group was, with about 5km to go, reduced from eight to four - Pogačar, Vingegaard, Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) and Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL). And though the lone leader had between 20-30 seconds gap, which never looked enough to hold on to win, somehow he made it.

Onley lost touch with the four-man chase group, resulting in Lipowitz going to the front to be sure Onley would lose time so the German could wrap up his 3rd place overall, and the young rider classification with it.

Related News

Though Arensman looked laboured up front, the anticipated big attack from Pogačar behind never came. And so the chasers got closer and closer to Arensman, but never caught him. By the time Vingegaard realised Pogačar wasn't going to make a move, and made one himself, they were deep into the final few hundred metres.

On the line, Arensman was in disbelief as he stayed away to win, with Vingegaard and Pogačar 2nd and 3rd, at just two seconds. And though there remains some climbing tomorrow on the 184km road from Nantua to Pontarlier, the general classification now looks set.

Pogačar leads Vingegaard overall by 4:24, with Lipowitz 3rd at 11:09 and Onley now 4th at 12:12, having been within 22 seconds of Lipowitz yesterday. Healy is now 9th, at 25:41. He is 3:38 up on Ben O'Connor (Team Jayco AlUla) in 10th and 7:10 down on Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) in 8th.

Any general classification movement for Healy is now very unlikely, barring major incident for him and any of those close to him overall. However, both tomorrow's stage and Sunday's final stage into Paris - with it's added climbs - look like ideal terrain for Healy attacks. His performance today suggests he still has some reserves to call upon.

Related News