Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) may not have come away with a coveted stage win at today's Tourmalet stage on the Tour de France, but he put in an incredible effort that was only brought to an end deep in the final.
The Irish rider was up the road for 97km of the 152km stage from Pau to Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d'Adet, including the climbs of Col du Tourmalet, Hourquette d’Ancizan and the summit finish of Pla d’Adet, with Healy getting clear of the rest of the breakaway on that final climb, forging clear solo.
He had only about one minute - a quarter of what the breakaway initially gained - and was finally swallowed up by the UAE Team Emirates duo of Aam Yates and yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar just 4.5km short of the line.
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Yates had attacked the select group with about 7km to go to the finish and though he gained on Healy, it always looked like the British rider was waiting for his team leader.
And just a couple of kilometres later, Pogačar attacked after Yates. Though Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) tired to follow that move, with Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) just behind, they could not match the power of the yellow jersey.
When Pogačar caught Yates, he sat behind him as they caught and passed Healy. Once Pogačar got a breather and then surged again, going solo all the way to the line.
By the finish he had 39 second on 2nd placed Vingegaard and 1:10 on 3rd placed Evenepoel. Healy had understandably faded out of contention once he was caught and he finished the stage in 16th at 3:27.
The Irish rider had initially gotten clear in a large breakaway group as the first big climb, the Tourmalet, began. It included Healy and his two team mates, Rui Costa and Sean Quinn.
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Also present were: Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny), Simon Geschke (Cofidis), Louis Meintjes, Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan), Fabien Grellier (TotalEnergies), Chris Juul Jensen (Team Jayco AlUla), Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team), Marco Haller (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
It was quickly whittled down to 10 - mainly because the sprinters present were only interested in the intermediate sprint just before the Tourmalet began. And though Quinn climbed on the front of the breakaway, driving it on for Healy, the fact the gap only ever hit four minutes meant it was going to be a challenge to hang on.
On the final climb of the day, with about 10km to go, Healy and Gaudu dropped the others who remained, though the Irishman was soon on his own at the front trying to hold off the general classification men, though he was eventually unable to.
The result sees Healy remaining 14th overall, some 15:45 down on race leader Pogačar, who now has 1:57 on Vingegaard. The Dane has moved up to 2nd overall and pushed Evenepoel down to 3rd, some 2:22 off yellow.
?The Pyrenees: Chapter 1
Once upon a time in the Pyrenean Nation there lay mountains. The Tourmalet loomed high. Many survived but the final challenge, Pla d’Adet, was defeated by our Yellow warrior first.⏪ Here’s the real summary of today's stage #TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/ULALOnwAVP
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 13, 2024
