Ireland's Healy excels, Ryan crashes on day of "carnage" at Strade Binache

Ben Healy has confirmed his early season form with 4th place at Strade Binanhe while debutant Archie Ryan crashed during the Italian race (Photo: Roberto Bettini-SCA-Cor Vos)

Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) may have had a quiet start to the season but the Irish rider showed his true form for the first time at Saturday's Strade Bianche with an excellent ride that netted him 4th place on what he described as a race with plenty of "carnage".

Though, like the rest of the field, he was unable to match the dominant world champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who claimed another epic victory despite a bad crash, Healy took a superb result and has proven he is clearly in great form.

"We didn't put a foot wrong all day," Healy said. "I avoided all the carnage. I think that's what this race comes down to a lot of the time, just being in the right position and creating your own luck.

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"To be honest, it wasn't really an attack when I got away. It was hard up there, but I just wanted to do well in the bike race. It came to that last climb and I started to press the pedals a bit harder, just trying to get up it and get to the finish line as fast as possible.

"I had managed to drop the other two guys. And then for sure, once you've got a gap, it is just head down and go. The atmosphere was insane. The last gravel climb was just crazy, ears ringing, goosebumps, everything. It is an awesome race to do."

Though Healy had a ride free of any major incident, his team mate Richard Carapaz punctured at a bad moment and was unable to get back to the front of the race, taking him out of contention.

Healy's Irish team mate, Archie Ryan, was making his debut at the race and was a non-finisher after a crash. However, he got back on his bike after that fall and was able to continue until stopping at the midway point.

His team has reported that Ryan suffered no serious injury and had instead "escaped with some road rash and bruises and won't be kept out of action".

Pogačar and Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) attacked from the select group on the Monte Sante Marie gravel sector, where the Slovenian went solo last year with 81km to go. They formed a trio up front, with Conor Swift (Ineos Grenadiers), who stayed with them after coming back from the early breakaway.

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However, with 49km remaining, Pogačar slid out spectacularly on a downhill section, sliding right off the road. While Pidcock was behind him, he corrected his line, stayed upright with ease and then waited for the world champion.

Swift was forced to unclip, and went slightly off course, in a bid to avoid falling. And it was his race that was damaged most by the incident, with Swift soon slipping back to an eventual 13th place and cutting an emotional figure at the finish.

A cut up Pogačar distanced Pidcock on the Colle Pinzuto climb with 19km to go and from there rode in solo to Piazza del Campo in Siena for victory, some 1:24 up on Pidcock. Behind them, it was Pogačar's last domestique of the day, Tim Wellens, who came through for 3rd place, finishing solo at 2:12.

Then came Healy, also on his own, in 4th place at 3:23 after dropping the chasers he was with on the final step climb up through the streets of Siena towards the finish line.

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