"Last Vuelta he couldn't even get into the break" - Ben Healy named the key factor in growth of his EF teammate

Ben Healy has won only one stage at the 2025 Tour de France. But his combative style of racing and countless breakaway attempts made him the crowd-favourite of the past Grande Boucle. The Irishman was rewarded with an unexpected 9th place overall at the race, but perhaps even more satisfying it is to see the impact his efforts had on his colleagues. Suddenly, the peloton, and even more the breakaways, are full of EF Education-EasyPost jerseys - always ready to take a pull and push beyond their own limits. None of that may have been possible if not for a role model such as Ben Healy.

"It's a super young team, a lot of what we're doing is about gaining experience. If we managed to win a stage it'd obviously be fantastic, specially with a squad like this with so many Grand Tour debutants," EF Education-EasyPost sports director Tom Southam tells Cyclingnews from the Vuelta a Espana.

Healy is invaluable for the team in the way he motivates teammates to find the best versions of themself when they see him race that way too. "Ben knows a lot of our younger group of riders from racing together, they're in a similar age bracket, but how he races is very much of this time – not being afraid to attack, not being afraid to go early, thinking outside the box," Southam explains.

The "Healy-effect" reaches way beyond the American team too: "It's not just our guys who are looking at Ben, either. There are lots of guys across the peloton, too, who are looking at how he's racing and thinking about it. Certainly for our team, in any case, it's given us some notable success on a great platform for these guys to see and aim at."

Amongst those young rider doing well in the Vuelta, Southam highlights the 25-year-old Sean Quinn. Out for a large part of the season due to knee problems, he only completed 7 race days before the Spanish Grand Tour. But the American made a name for himself immediately, joining three breakaways and converting one into a top-5 result.

"Already for Sean, that's a big step forwards after such a really difficult year," Southam said. "Last time in the Vuelta he couldn't even get into the break, and this time he already has done - repeatedly."

And it's not just Quinn. Markel Beloki, son of the famous Joseba Beloki, has made a huge leap forward in recent months and suddenly the 20-year-old is suddenly capable of finishing with the group of favourites on a demanding climb such as that to Valdezcaray.

But Southam also highlights that the difficulty of jumping into a breakaway at Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana is uncomparable. While at Vuelta, teams are mostly happy to let any kind of group go, at Tour we have seen stages where it took until a half-point of the stage to see a group finally form at the front.

"It's completely different. The breaks here in the Vuelta have just gone. So far in the race the fight to get in the move on stage 7 has been the maximum" - in large part due to the presence of former GC contender Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates - XRG) - "and it took what, 40 minutes?"

"In the Tour the pressure to get in the break is so big and the time taken for it to form is so long that that actually tips back the stages in favour of the GC teams. Nobody will miss a break at the Tour, they just can't and if they do miss it, they'll just keep going and keep going. And as a result, the GC squads only have to ride on the front for 50 kilometres because any break never gets a big enough gap in the first place."

The strategy of team in command - Visma | Lease a Bike is clearly much different with Tadej Pogacar not around. Suddenly escaped groups gain up to seven (or more) minutes without as much of a fight. "You'd never, ever get that happening in the Tour. And that makes a massive difference."