2025 Tour de France Stage 6
Hic Ben Healy victor est:
Over the past two stages Tadej Pogacar, the Slovenian World Champion, has taken over the Tour de France. On stage 4, Pogacar attacked on the final slopes of the Rampe Saint-Hilaire, a short but extremely steep climb that came with just 5km to go. Vingegaard was the only other rider who could follow. On the descent a few other riders manages to catch up, and then there was a reduced sprint to the line, with Mathieu Van Der Poel the clear favourite. Van Der Poel, wearing the yellow jersey, started his sprint and Pogacar was on his wheel, Van Der Poel surged ahead, but Pogacar managed to come around the race leader, and beat Van Der Poel on the line to take his 100th career victory, and his 18th Tour de France stage win!
Yesterday was the first time trial of this years Tour, a very flat 33km loop from Caen to Caen. The World TT Champion Remco Evenepoel got to wear his rainbow skin suit, and rode the perfect TT taking the stage win at a whopping average speed of 54kph! Pogacar was 16 seconds behind Remco, but put significant time into some of the other GC rivals who did not fare as well.
Jonas Vingegaard, who had an excellent TT in the recent Criterium du Dauphine lost significant time over the 33km’s, he finished in 13th place 1:21 down on Remco. Primoz Roglic finished in 12th place two seconds faster than Jonas.
Following the big reshuffle (which always happens after the first TT in a grand tour), here is what the GC looks like at the start of today’s stage:
Pogacar by the way, is now the leader in all three categories, yellow jersey, green jersey and polka dot jersey.
Lets have a look at today’ stage:
Stage 6
Stage 6 of the Tour de France is a proper bumpy 202km through Normandy, from Bayeux - home of the famous tapestry - to Vire. If you’ve never been to Bayeux and seen the Bayeux Tapestry then don’t worry, because next year you can see it at the British Museum, as the UK and French governments have agreed a trade of treasures. The tapestry will be returning to UK soil for the first time in 900 years next September.
It is all up and down today, and depending on how everyone’s legs are feeling after yesterday, it could be one for the breakaway.
We join the race with 65km to go, and there is a breakaway of 8 riders, chief among them is our old mate Mathieu Van Der Poel. The break has almost 3 minutes on the peloton, which means that Van Der Poel is currently the virtual race leader.
The big question is weather Pogacar will want to give up the jersey today, or whether he will make UAE ride to bring back the breakaway. You’d have thought Pogi would have been satisfied with just the green jersey and the polka dot jersey!
There is groupetto at the back of the race with most of the sprinters in, and currently this group is nearly 12 minutes behind.
63km to go, it is interesting to see Simon Yates for the first time in this Tour, the Giro d’Italia winner has lost enough time now to be anonymous in the GC battle, so I think we’ll see him in a lot of breakaways over the next two weeks as he hunts for stages.
The stage today ends in a short uphill section, and MVDP would be the absolute favourite for the win amongst the 8 breakaway riders. If the peloton don’t manage to bring the group back, then it would be unlikely that the 8 riders would go to the finish line together, it is more likely that there will be some riders who would attempt a late escape to go for the solo win.
60km to go, the breakaway have 3 minutes on the peloton now, and are all riding very co-cooperatively at the moment. Behind UAE lead the chase, with big Nils Pollit at the front taking all the wind.
55km to go, there are loads of people out on the roads today watching the race go by, it is lovely to see. Normandy looks very picturesque, and it’s difficult to understand why over 1000 years ago these people all decided to pack up and invade England and never go back!
47km to go, and Michael Storer takes the KOM points at the top of the Côte de Juvigny-le-Tertre. The gap to the breakaway is just growing and growing, they have 3:42 now on the peloton. UAE still lead the chase but there doesn’t seem to be any other teams willing or able to assist. It looks now that the breakaway will not be caught, and now we are just waiting for someone to breakaway from the breakaway!
42km to go, and it has happened - Ben Healy, the Irishman from EF Education First has launched a solo attack from the breakaway. He attacked on the descent of the Côte de Juvigny-le-Tertre and now has 6 seconds on the other 7 riders.
39km to go, Healy’s gap is growing, he has 22 seconds now on Van Der Poel et al. Healy has a stage win in the Giro, but has never won a stage of the TdF, today could be his day!
36km to go, Healy still looks very strong riding with a high cadence. He has 35 seconds on the chasers now. The peloton are 4:36 behind. It looks like Van Der Poel will be back in the yellow jersey again this evening, but does he fancy a crack at the stage win as well today? If he does he needs to attack and bring back Healy to the breakaway group.
30km to go, Healy is 47 seconds away now, and riding through a very packed Côte de Saint-Michel (St Michael - patron saint of underpants as my friend Mark would say). It is a 3.7km climb, and halfway up Captain America (Quin Simmonds) attacks off the front of the 7 man chasing group, Michael Storer goes with him, and now there are only 5 riders left in Van Der Poel’s group.
27km to go, and every time we see Quin Simmonds in his garish USA National Champs jersey ‘Born in the USA’ by the Boss plays in our ears.
23km to go, Ben Healy is still going like the clappers. His team car pulls along side and the DS tips a bottle of water over Healy’s back to try and cool him off. It is very hot today, about 31C. The gaps just keep growing, Healy has 57 seconds on Team America World Police and Storer, Van Der Poel has 4:30 on the peloton which means that if the race stopped now, he would lead Pogacar in the yellow jersey race by 3 minutes.
20km to go, we are on a long descent off the Côte de Saint-Michel, and Ben Healy is absolutely bombing down. I can’t see Uncle Sam and Michael Storer bringing him back if he keeps up this pace.
12km to go, it looks like Ben Healy is riding to victory on today’s stage now. His lead over Quinn Trump and Michael Storer is up to almost 2 minutes now, and just keeps growing. Tadej Pogacar’s peloton are almost 7 minutes behind Healy, which means that he is going to rocket up the GC standings! It still looks like Van Der Poel is riding back into the yellow jersey, but at this rate Ben Healy could be in the top 3 by dinner time. Healy started the day 7:37 down on GC.
7km to go, Quinn Simmonds is trying to attack and break away from Michael Storer, but Storer can’t be shook off, also Storer at the moment refuses to take a turn on the front, which could mean that he is planning an attack of his own.
5km to go, Healy is on the final categorised climb of the day, the Côte de Vaudry. Once over there is a decsent and then an uphill finish. Healy’s gap has just grown and grown, he is 2:22 ahead of the two chasers, and still 7 minutes in front of the peloton. The crowds are getting bigger now, it looks like the whole of Normandy has had the day off work today. That is not the kind of work ethic that William the Conqueror would have expected.
3km to go, and Michael Storer is trying to attack and break away from Quinn Simmonds, but Simmonds battles to stay on Storer’s wheel.
1km to go, Ben Healy cruses through the flamme rouge, he has had the day of his life on the bike, the greatest moment of his career so far. The road goes uphill and Healy has to get out of the saddle and move his hips for the final few meters. As the hot crowd bash the barriers with their hands in support, Healy crosses the finish line, legs burning, heart pounding. He raises two arms above his head in celebration.
Simmonds and Storer are up next, and they seem to take the final steep meters much slower. Simmonds takes second followed by Storer. We are waiting for Mathieu Van Der Poel now, and the count back to Pogacar.
Van Der Poel looks exhausted as he crosses the line 3:57 behind Healy. Pogacar arrives on the scene much sooner than we expected, the peloton must have made some time up over the last few km’s. Pogacar crosses the line like a man desperate to cling on to yellow, if he has lost the jersey it will be by seconds not minutes like we thought earlier in the stage.
The results are in and Van Der Poel does win back the yellow jersey, but only by the skin of his teeth, Van Der Poel now leads by only 1 second!
Here are the results of the stage:
And here are the new GC standings:
What a stage! Thanks for reading (if you made it this far).