The Tour de France has been an unqualified success for EF Education-EasyPost so far, with Ben Healy the star of the team. After taking a spectacular solo victory on stage 6, he swapped the American team’s iconic pink kit for the maillot jaune after making the breakaway on stage 10 on Monday.
After his teammates dragged Healy at the rest of the day’s breakaway over the hills of the Massif Central, Healy did enough to hold off the pursuit of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) by 29 seconds.
With the rest day coming on Tuesday and a flat stage on Wednesday, the Irishman should be able to remain in yellow until at least Thursday, when the Tour de France reaches its first major summit finish at Hautacam as the race reaches the Pyrénées.
It’s EF Education-EasyPost’s second taste of yellow one year after Richard Carapaz took the yellow jersey in Turin on stage 3 in the 2024 Tour de France.
Taking the maillot jaune again unleashed plenty of emotions at the team bus waiting. Staff hugged and swapped high-fives, while team manager Jonathan Vaughters, who was in the team car with directeur sportif Tom Southam, admitted he shed a tear. Tour de France glory is the payoff for months and years of hard work by everyone in the EF Education-EasyPost team.
“I would have shed a couple of tears all the same if I was watching at home, I almost did just now, I almost choked up there, but you didn’t notice,” Vaughters said after arriving at the team bus.
He was absent when Healy won stage 6 but witnessed the suspense and overwhelming joy of success on stage 10 from the front seat of the team car.
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“It was tense in there for a long time, at one point we had to make a definitive call for the stage or if we were going to gamble it all and go all in for the yellow jersey,” Vaughters explained.
“This was the luxury of having won a stage because we said – we’ve won a stage so let’s try to get the yellow.”
Healy began the stage 3:55 down on Pogačar but was the virtual race leader in the final two hours of racing. The gap came down as Visma-Lease a Bike led the chase and then Pogačar attacked on the final climb. Fortunately, the Slovenian seemed happy for Healy to take yellow and eased the pace in the final kilometre.
“We were just looking at time gaps, looking at our watches, just any information we could get from anywhere, really nervous. We were pretty damn scared when Visma began accelerating the race,” Vaughters said.
“UAE – they were riding a tempo but I don’t think they were overly fussed about giving the jersey away. Visma – I don’t exactly ever understand what Visma does but they were doing something, trying to get rid of Pog. It didn’t work, surprise. And that brought the gap down and so we were pretty worried.”
EF Education-EasyPost’s strategy started by stacking the breakaway with Neilson Powless, Harry Sweeny, Alex Baudin and Healy making the decisive 28-rider attack.
“We knew we were going to be really good this deep into the race, so we just said, hey let’s just light it up, have fun, pressure’s off, we’ve already won a stage and see where that gets us,” Vaughters said.
“It was beautiful, everyone deserves big kudos for this, the four guys who made the break, obviously: Harry Sweeny, was the MVP of the day, he was probably worth two minutes of that gap, it was an unbelievable effort. Alex Baudin finished off the job and then ultimately Ben had to ride the last 15 kilometres by himself because nobody was helping him.
“To have that mental fortitude, and hold it together and not explode, it’s a truly exceptional effort. Very few riders in the world can actually do that extended effort.”
Vaughters’ organisation has worn yellow before and won major Classics. Carapaz’s spell lasted just a day in 2024, while Thor Hushovd led from stage 2 to stage 9 when the team was backed by Garmin-Cervelo, but this one was different for Vaughters.
“This one is much more meaningful because the guys here now are really people who’ve come up through our system,” Vaughters said.
“The older [2011] crew – hell, I raced with half those guys, so it was a more tense environment. But these guys I think of them as my kids and that obviously makes it much meaningful when your kids pull off something big like this.”
Healy is also in the best young rider’s white jersey. The team’s first goal is to keep yellow on the rolling stage around Toulouse.
“Let’s see day by day. Toulouse is complicated in that final, it’s very messy, a lot of short sharp climbs, dead turns into them,” Southam warned.
“We obviously want to keep the jersey as far and as long as we can. So we’ll work towards that, the gap’s not massive and Pogačar is Pogačar. It puts us in a position where we’ll have to defend a jersey quite deep into the Grand Tour, which is unusual and pretty cool.”
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