Ben Healy changes tactics in Tour de France: "They won’t let you join the break if you're 9th in the GC"

Healy had to let go on Thursday on the Soulor and decided to take it easy in Friday's time trial, but in the toughest of the three stages, he went back to his winning formula: attack. “I went for the break today and spent a lot of energy doing that, but I realized pretty quickly on that I didn't have the legs for the stage, especially with UAE pulling behind.”

“So I decided to pull the plug and see what I could do in the finale. I think it was the right decision in the end. Thymen and then Lenny were pulling so hard on the Tourmalet,” said Healy. “I had to make the decision on the road. They went so hard on that climb, and in the valleys. It really hurt the legs.”

From the group of GC contenders, Healy then rode to a very strong seventh place, ahead of Primoz Roglic. "Now that I am top ten on GC, I am not just going to lose time on purpose. Days like this and the ones coming up are the kind of days that always suit me. I think I've always sort of known that, but I've approached them from a breakaway standpoint rather than for the GC. I want to be up with the big boys," said the Irishman, who will probably not be allowed in the breakaway on Sunday.

Harry Sweeny, who previously played a crucial role in helping his teammate secure the yellow jersey, is well aware of this. “Ben's moved up two spots and everyone's feeling good. It'll be interesting now to see what the plan is and see if we still race aggressively or whether we can defend. No one's going to let ninth place on GC go in the breakaway. So we will see,” said the Aussie.

Sports director Charlie Wegelius was impressed by his rider. "As we expected, there was a big fight for the breakaway. That went on for a long time. The sprint competition brought the race to the bottom of the Tourmalet. Ben did a great job making it in. But, the constant pace changes and accelerations were a bit too much for him to handle. And he did something that's quite rare, which is getting dropped out of the breakaway, but still finding the resources to recover before getting caught, so he could stay with the yellow jersey group."

“He basically pressed reset and did his best race for the finale, which brought a pretty impressive seventh place,” said Wegelius. “That was a great standalone performance. We're going to sit down now, and focus on tomorrow with some other riders, and then we'll see what it means for the race going onwards. It was a pretty impressive ride.”