Despite currently sitting ninth on the Tour de France GC standings with Ben Healy, you’re unlikely to see EF Education-EasyPost riding to defend that in the coming days in the Alps, as the team aim to race “intelligently, not stupidly” and still sniff out breakaway opportunities.
With a stage win and a stint in the yellow jersey in the bag already, one might expect the American team to turn their focus to preserving Healy’s top 10 – which would be a career best finish by far – but the team are clear they’re not going to be pulling on the front to do that when stage wins are still up for grabs.
In fact, EF are confident that they can have it all: keep Healy safe on GC, and try to take another win, perhaps even with the Irishman himself.
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“We’ve got plenty of riders in the team, and a lot of riders that can change their role depending on what the team needs and what Ben needs for each day,” Neilson Powless told Cyclingnews on Wednesday.
“So we’re still pretty positive that we can chase after a stage win, even with helping Ben on GC, because to be honest, the stage win could come from Ben, which is a win-win.”
Whilst some teams and riders are having to make a choice going into the Alps, whether they throw everything at a stage win or at preserving GC spots, Powless was also clear that they don’t expect to have that conundrum.
“It’s not like going for a stage win would completely eliminate Ben’s chances of getting in the top 10, and like I said, we have a lot of riders that can change their role, so I really don’t think it will ever come down to that choice,” he said.
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Moreover, with a stage win already secured and a fun few days in yellow, there is a sense that a good GC finish would only be extra to what EF have already achieved.
“Like I said before, the stage win could come from Ben in the next three days, and that would help his GC as well, so I think we’re really excited to see what Ben has got in him, because honestly, it’s like a cherry on top that he’s even in the GC at all. In the beginning, he was just losing time, sort of on purpose to go in breaks, but then he found himself in this position, so it’s all just icing on top.”
For EF Education-EasyPost DS Tom Southam, the next few days are also about being pragmatic and realistic, and not getting drawn into battles that don’t concern them.
“If these stages go to the break or not, it doesn’t really make a difference to us anymore with Ben. Ben’s won a stage, he is where he is,” he told Cyclingnews.
And whilst he did say it would be “fantastic if Ben could finish in the top 10”, Southam affirmed that chasing down a rider in 10th or 11th isn’t going to be on their agenda in the Alps.
“A lot of guys can go down the road and get six minutes without anyone batting an eyelid really, so we don’t want to have to defend on a day like that, where it’s just us on the front of the bunch pulling because we’re in a battle for ninth or tenth,” he said, before pointing out the reality of what’s to come in the next four stages.
“We obviously want to support Ben as best we can. Are there opportunities for him to go in the break the next two days? I don’t see that there is, partly based on the fact that a team like Visma still wants to win a mountain stage, Vingegaard still wants to win a stage, Pogačar probably still wants to win a stage, and there’s only two stages in the Alps.”
Southam also pointed to stage 21 in Paris as a day that could still be important for the lower placings in GC, where the gaps are still relatively close, and a rider being in a winning move could see them move up on the final day.
“Someone in the top 10 could be in that group, and that’s going to keep moving things around,” he said. “That could be stage 20 or it could be stage 21, we don’t know what’s going to happen on the new circuit in Paris. So we want more opportunities for our team to be active in the race and to be aggressive and do it intelligently, not stupidly.”
However, whatever happens for Healy in the coming days, this Tour has certainly been a step up for the 24-year-old and his abilities.
“I feel like the way he’s climbing is above being a very good breakaway rider,” Southam concluded. “He had a bad day on the Tourmalet in the heat, but apart from that, his climbing has actually been world-class. So it’s a mixture of a bit more intelligence and developing an engine on the climbs.”
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