Irish rider Ben Healy may have been making his WorldTour debut at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad today but that didn’t stop the 21-year-old taking an aggressive approach. The former Irish elite road race champion got into the breakaway early in the contest and when it split later he was in the front end.
He then remained in the lead group when it swelled with the arrival of breakaway riders from the peloton, staying at the front of the race until hat breakaway was caught deep into the finale.
To round off his effort, Healy then finished in the remains of the peloton – numbering just 60 riders – some 1:30 down on solo winner Wout van Aert (Jumbo Visma). It was a fantastic start for Healy, whose results in U23 races suggest he could be a classics-style rider, in what are his first weeks with EF Education-EasyPost.
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Almost immediately after the start today, Healy got clear in a breakaway with Juri Hollmann (Movistar), Alexander Konychev (BikeExchange-Jayco), Quentin Jauregui (B&B Hotels-KTM), Ruben Apers (Sport Flanders-Baloise), Donovan Grondin (Arkea-Samsic), Morten Hulgaard (Uno-X).
Over the next couple of hours the breakaway’s lead continued to build, with Healy doing his fair share of the work up front. With about 130km remaining the gap reached eight minutes; the maximum it would stretch out to.
By the time the breakaway dipped inside 50km to go it was down to four men: Healy, Hollmann, Apers and Hulgaard. In the ever-reducing bunch behind, a number of attackers had gone clear and soon joined those up front.
They were Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Florian Vermeersch (Lotto Soudal) and Loïc Vliegen (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), who swept up Konychev and Grondin and brought them back up to the lead group.
By the time that group reached the Marlboroughstraat climb – the sixth of the day with 164km covered – the gap between the leaders and the remains of the bunch was just before 40 seconds.
On the next climb, the Biesestraat, a number of riders were shed from the breakaway, reducing it to seven, though Healy was able to hold his place. As the breakaway hit the Lenberg climb, with 35km to go, the breakaway still had about 50 seconds on a 100-rider peloton led by Jumbo Visma.
By the fourth last climb of the day – the Berendries with just 30km to go - Healy was still in the breakaway about 50 seconds ahead of the main field, which was being attacked by Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious), Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates) and others.
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However, when Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma) reached for the afterburners on the front of the bunch on the climb, that overhauled the Mohoric-Trentin group and dragged a strongman’s group clear of the bunch.
That group was comprised of Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma), Tom Pidcock (Ineos), Jhonathan Narvaez (Ineos), Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious). It was only with 25km to go that Van Aert’s group caught the Healy group.
That made for a breakaway of 11 riders who, alongside Healy, were: Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma), Tom Pidcock (Ineos), Jhonathan Narvaez (Ineos), Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious), Loïc Vliegen (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), Morten Hulgaard (Uno-X), Juri Hollmann (Movistar), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and Florian Vermeersch (Lotto Soudal).
With about 20km to go, Healy’s breakaway group enjoyed a lead of some 30 seconds on the remains of the main peloton, led by Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl. While the leaders were working well, and looked like they may all make it to the finish, Benoot attacked solo from the breakaway.
He powered off up the road in a move that took the impetus out of the Healy group, which was then gradually reeled in by the remains of the bunch. The Healy-Van Aert group was caught on the penultimate climb of the day - Muur-Kapelmuur – with just 16km to go.
Benoot was also caught on the climb and a group of about 25 to 30 riders pulled clear of the rest of the bunch over the top of the ascent. The gap between those leaders and the remains of the bunch was only seconds as the breakaway hit the slopes of the Bosberg. Once on that climb Van Aert attacked and rode clear to victory on what was the last climb of the day with 13km remaining.
He took the win by 22 seconds from a 20-rider group; Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Victorious) winning the sprint for 2nd place from Greg Van Avermaet (AG2R Citroën). Healy finished in 75th place, in the remains of the bunch, at 1:30 to round off what was a fantastic debut performance at this level.
