“The World Championships is the race I dream of winning most” – Ben Healy reveals where his true focus lies despite Tour de France GC breakthrough

For Ben Healy, the temptation after a breakthrough season would be to widen the lens. Wearing yellow at the Tour de France, winning a stage and stepping onto a World Championship podium all invite louder ambition and bigger promises. Instead, Healy has done the opposite. He has narrowed his focus.

The Irish rider has been clear that while the yellow jersey carried enormous emotional weight, there is one race above all others that now defines how he sees his future.

“The World Championships is probably the race that I dream of the most to win,” Healy said in quotes collected by the Irish Mirror. “It’s not always guaranteed that the course is going to suit you, but on the years that it does suit you, I think you’ve got to go full gas for it.”

With Canada hosting the next edition, his intent is unmistakable. “Canada is definitely one of those, so yeah I’ll be going all in for that.”

Healy’s rise has never followed a conventional path, and he shows little interest in pretending otherwise. Rather than talking himself into roles that do not fit, he has built his career around brutal honesty about his own strengths.

“I think I just identified pretty early on that maybe I’m not… I don’t have a traditional skill set within cycling, so how can I profit from it best?” he said. “For me, that’s either the really hard, long days or a breakaway. I guess I just identified how I could win and I’ve kept on doing that, whether people like it or not.”

That self awareness explains why his biggest Tour moments came through aggression rather than restraint, and why stage hunting remains central to his approach.

“One thing we really focused on before the race was really trying to hand-pick the days that we believed I could have a chance. That stage six was the first one.”

The Tour Healy broke through in is not the Tour of previous decades, and he is acutely aware of how the race itself has evolved.

“I think the biggest thing to attribute to why racing is so fast now, look at the equipment that we’re using now to even when I was racing first year at Under 23 which is only five years ago,” he said. “The bikes are night and day different almost, that’s the first thing. And then just the way that we’re racing now.”

Team control has also reshaped how stages unfold. “Look at UAE, they just set up their train and one by one the riders pull the race along at maximum speed possible. That makes a big difference.”

For riders like Healy, relentless tempo and shorter stages open the door to decisive moves rather than drawn-out stalemates.

Wearing yellow brought an intensity Healy admits was difficult to prepare for. “I got it the day before the rest day and I can tell you now the rest day was not a rest day for me with the yellow jersey,” he said. “It was a stressful day to be honest with the media and just all the attention that the yellow jersey comes with.”

Amid that whirlwind, one message stood out. “Stephen Roche,” Healy said. “He managed to get hold of my number and sent me a message congratulating me, just saying what a great job I’m doing and stuff. It’s pretty cool to be acknowledged by a cycling legend.”

Healy’s bronze medal at the UCI Road World Championships in Kigali reinforced a path he already believed in. “It was just a pretty surreal experience,” he said. “The first major championships for cycling in Africa, no one really knew how it was going to play out. And then it was just a really great event.”

He thrived in the attritional conditions. “With the humidity and the altitude and the heat it just made for a really tough Worlds and just a super attritional one. But that’s also something that I quite like.”

Energy management proved decisive. “I managed to save a lot of energy early on in the race which meant I was able to really give it something in the final stages. And to finish on the podium, that was a super special one.”

Despite his step forward, Healy sees no reason to overhaul what has already worked. “It’s hard to think that I’m going to change anything massively, but for sure in cycling you can never stand still,” he said. “If you think one thing is going to keep on working forever, then you’re only fooling yourself.”

For now, the calendar remains familiar. “But nothing major is going to change in 2026. I’ll probably have a pretty similar calendar.”

Even the ultimate dream is framed with restraint. “I’d love to think that maybe one day I could win the Tour, I think right now it’s potentially a bit of a stretch.”

What is not a stretch is the clarity of his ambition. Healy knows the races that suit him, the days that matter most, and when it is time to go all in.