"If I didn't believe in myself I wouldn't be here" - Ben Healy not giving up Maillot Jaune without a fight at 2025 Tour de France
Cycling
Ben Healy has undoubtedly been one of the star riders over the course of the first 11 stages at the 2025 Tour de France. If the Irishman is to keep hold of the Maillot Jaune on stage 12 though, Healy will likely need to put in the climbing performance of his career against Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard.
Clearly not willing give up the race leader without a fight however, on stage 11, Healy even attempted to get himself up the road and into the breakaway. "Yeah I mean, yesterday, you have to try and take any advantage you can on Tadej," smiled the EF Education-EasyPost star in a pre-stage 12 interview with ITV Sport at the start line of the first day in the Pyrenees. "Today is going to be a very different day for me. I've just got to try and keep calm, try and ride my own tempo. I've just got to get to the finish as fast as possible for me today. If that's within 29 seconds of Tadej, then I'll be a happy man at the end."
"I don't think I can wish for anything. It's just going to be hard from the start," he continues. "There's two mountains and that's just a war of attrition. I've race Hautacam before, and I know it's quite difficult. But yeah, this is the Tour de France. You go up it quite a bit faster than anywhere else."
Still though, Healy sounds reasonably confident. "I have to don't I!" he smiles. "I'm a bike rider and if I didn't believe in myself I wouldn't be here."
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"If I get to the finish within 29" of Tadej then I'll be a happy man"
— ITV Cycling (@itvcycling) July 17, 2025
Ben Healy spoke to Daniel about whether he's confident of keeping the yellow jersey after stage 12 💛🇮🇪#TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/LSxwFP80WW
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
- So all those who went to watch, including all from abroad, waled there, spent nothing? Most places hosting events of the sort manage to make it worthwhile. If it was so obviously fruitless, don’t you think by now they’d have run out of hosting candidates? Why do you think the Tour can command such high prices for departure and arrival locations? If it didn’t bring anything locally they’d have to pay to get authorisation to use cities.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- What a travesty ! That little deviation did nothing to impede Brand !frieders307-11-2026
- I also wanne beat Pogacar in the tour but it aint gonne happen. Jonas unfortunately getting dropped by del toro and seixas several times this TDF and jonas team is very weak and joinas on way down, it aint happening thats clear. its also clear it only happened cause Pogacar was hurt and had a broken wrist that time everytime both full strenght its not close we just have to be honest about it :/miguel07-11-2026
- They do this but literally let cars on courses to run over riders.mij07-11-2026
- Looking at that photo she appears to be several feet from her. I’m not sure how that impeded brands sprint.mij07-11-2026
- Lucky to not get disqualified
leedorney07-11-2026
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