"He’ll just enjoy every moment in this jersey” – Dan Martin beams as Ben Healy makes yellow jersey history at the Tour de France

Ben Healy has made history at the 2025 Tour de France, becoming the first Irishman in 38 years to pull on the yellow jersey. After winning on stage 6, and making the breakaway on stage 10, Healy now leads the general classification outright, an astonishing rise for the EF Education–EasyPost rider.

Healy’s performance on Stage 10, where he finishes third behind the winner Simon Yates, was enough to vault him into the race lead. The last Irishman to wear yellow was Stephen Roche in 1987.

Former pro and five-time Grand Tour stage winner Dan Martin was in awe of Healy’s effort.

“I think the fact he dragged those (other breakaway) guys the last 25k and still finished 3rd on the stage, it shows the form that he’s in… He’s the guy in form,” Martin told ITV.

Martin recalled catching up with Healy after his Stage 5 victory, describing Healy as stunned by what he’d accomplished, “I managed to get to him after the finish in between podium and doping control, and he was like, speechless… ‘what just happened’ basically. And then to do this…”

EF Education – EasyPost, the same team where Martin began his pro career, earned praise for how they set up the move that ultimately led to yellow.

“I’m really happy for the team… They always seem to go beyond expectations and manage to pull something out of the hat. And I’m sure they had that all planned this morning, to try and do that (take yellow). Putting four guys in the break, it started from that moment. And (Healy) managed to finish it off, somehow.”

Martin emphasized the unique quality of Healy’s riding style and ability, “I couldn’t, definitely, do what he does. These long breakaways, this ability to maintain a super aero position and a high power output for so long, it’s just incredible. He obviously trains that ability.”

Now leading the Tour going into the rest day, Healy has a chance to enjoy the moment.

“I just hope he gets to enjoy the rest day being in the yellow jersey… We’ll see if he does a recovery ride in the jersey, I probably would, being honest,” Martin laughed.

Looking ahead, the challenge is keeping yellow once the race heads to the mountains.

“Obviously he doesn’t have much advantage over Tadej Pogačar, and we’ve seen how strong him and Vingegaard are at the moment. They took a minute out of Ben on the last climb (today), really playing cat and mouse.”

Still, Martin is confident Healy will make the most of it, “He’ll just enjoy every moment in this jersey, I know he will… And he’ll just savour it as it might never happen again, he’s got to enjoy it.”