Ireland's Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) soloed to victory on stage 6 of the Tour de France, attacking out of the day-long breakaway with 42km to ride to his first Tour stage win, whilst Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) reclaimed yellow behind.
Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) out-climbed Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) on the steep finale to take second, after the pair attacked to try to chase down Healy in the last 30km, but ultimately they were unable to catch the strong Irishman and the end of a long and aggressive day.
Healy was the first rider to kick off the breakaway attempts at the start of stage 6, battling through a long, hard-fought break formation process that took over 60km and saw him caught and attacking again more than once.
His perseverance eventually got him into the eight-man group that would be the day's breakaway, and with 42km still to race, he attacked solo, never to be seen again and earning him the biggest win of his career.
"It's just unbelievable. It's really what I've worked all for – not just this year, but the whole time. It's really incredible, and hours and hours of hard work from so many people, so to pay them back today is really, really amazing," Healy said at the finish.
"Last year was a real eye-opener and really made me believe that I could do it [win a Tour stage]. I just knuckled down and did the hard work and tried to refine my racing style as well, lots of racing footage watched and it really paid off today I think.
"I just switched on from the start," Healy said of the tough break formation. "Maybe I spent a a bit too much to get in the break but that's just the way I do it. And then once we were in there, we really had to work for that gap and it was just on the pedals all day.
"I knew I needed to get away from the group and pick my moment, and I think I timed it well and hopefully caught them by surprise a little bit. But I knew what I had to do: just head down and do my best ride to the finish."
Van der Poel finished in the third group on the road, the last of the remaining breakaway riders, and despite a sprinting finish from Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), the Dutchman managed to take back yellow by a single second and now leads the Tour de France.
GC action almost kicked off on the final climb, with Visma-Lease a Bike trying to test Pogačar, or perhaps shorten the gap and force the Slovenian to keep the jersey. But ultimately, though Pogačar beat Vingegaard to the line, he did lose yellow by a second.
Healy himself also rocketed up the GC standings to eighth, and third in the best young rider standings.
After starting the day leading three classifications, Pogačar relinquished his lead in all of them on Thursday, as Tim Wellens goes back into polka-dots, and Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) takes green.
How it unfolded
Despite the early feeling that the 201.5km stage to Vire Normandie would be a good day for the breakaway, there was a delay in the initial attacks, as it was clear that teams like Lidl-Trek and Intermarché-Wanty intended to keep things together until the intermediate sprint after 20 kilometres.
This is exactly what happened, and at the sprint there was a big battle for the points, with Jonathan Milan taking the maximum in front of Van der Poel and Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty). The break attempts immediately launched off the back of the sprint, with Healy and Simmons the first to go.
The next 15km was a continued battle for the break, with groups trying to bridge to Healy and Simmons, but all came back together over the top of the first climb, where Simmons took maximum points with the peloton right behind him. A minute back – and growing – a group including Milan, Girmay and Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) was already dropped on the furious, hilly start to the stage.
Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Pablo Castrillo (Movistar) spearheaded the next move, but that didn't stick either, and it was a long, arduous, washing machine of a process before a break finally appeared to form, 65km into the stage.
It was at first five: Van der Poel, Simmons, Healy, Will Barta (Movistar) and Harold Tejada (XDS-Astana), but grew to eight over the next few kilometres as Eddie Dunbar (Jayco AlUla), Michar Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike) bridged across from the peloton.
Finally, after 70km of rapid racing, the situation finally began to settle, and the peloton allowed the break to build up a lead of two minutes. Behind, the dropped riders were truly out of the race, with the gap eventually growing up to 10 minutes.
For the next 50km, with no categorised climbs for a while, the break worked hard to try and build their lead. However, the peloton and UAE Team Emirates were clearly not going to let the gap balloon, and kept things controlled. With 70km to go, the eight leaders pushed the lead out towards three minutes, though Visma and UAE weren't sitting up behind, with the yellow jersey in the balance as Van der Poel needed less than a minute and half to take the race lead.
At the next king of the mountains, the Côte de Mortain, Dunbar just chipped off the group to take the maximum points. As the break got into the hiller final 50km, the gap grew out towards four minutes, as it became clear that the breakaway were going to be able to contend the win in one way or another.
The decisive attack
With 42km to go, the attacks in the break began, with most riders not wanting to go to the line with Van der Poel. Healy was the first to put in a big dig, and he managed to break clear on his own, building a gap of 30 seconds over a few kilometres.
There was a bit of a lack of cohesion in the break behind, with it not clear who should, or could, chase Healy, and perhaps an assumption that he was at a disadvantage on his own. However, the young Irishman kept increasing his lead over the next kilometres, up to 46 seconds with 30km to go, with the peloton five minutes down.
On the next climb, the Cóte de Saint-Michel-de-Montiole, Storer and Simmons attacked from the break to chase Healy. They quickly built a good gap over the rest of the group, but were still a minute back from Healy with 20km to go, and the gaps only continued to grow.
With 10km to go, Healy's gap was nearly two minutes over Simmons and Storer, and two-and-a-half minutes over the Van der Poel group, with the peloton almost seven minutes back, meaning Van der Poel had a chance of taking yellow. Simmons and Storer started to attack each other in the final 6km, but it wasn't enough to make any inroads into Healy.
The tough finale made it a hard, dragged out finish for Healy, but it was joy at the end as he claimed his first Tour stage win, 2:44 ahead of the chasers. Simmons and Storer fought it out for second, with the American's punchier finish getting the better of the Australian in the end.
The second chasing group began to break apart in the last 5km, and Van der Poel found himself dropped, and therefore battling to try and take the yellow jersey as the peloton began to accelerate behind him.
Despite the race win being well gone, there was a bit of a GC fight up the final climb in the peloton, with Visma trying to test Pogačar, but ultimately the Slovenian was the strongest, finishing in front of Vingegaard. He sprinted to the line, possibly trying to hold onto the yellow, but was just one second too slow, and the race lead went back to Van der Poel, just a day after he lost it in the TT.
Dropped early, the gruppetto of sprinters did eventually make it home, 30 minutes down on Healy but well within the time cut.
Van der Poel now leads the Tour by just one second over Pogačar, with another battle possible on stage 7 with its Mur de Bretagne finish.
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