‘It’s inspiring for them’ – How Ben Healy’s Tour de France success is helping next-gen EF Education-EasyPost riders stay on fire at Vuelta a España

When Jonas Vingegaard attacked late on stage 9 of the Vuelta a España, it made for one of the race’s most dramatic finales of recent years – but the Visma-Lease a Bike rider’s explosive move and its consequences were far from being the only interesting plot line of the day.

For one thing, the presence of Ireland’s Archie Ryan in the five-rider early break on the stage quietly added another important chapter to how EF Education-EasyPost and some of cycling’s next generation of riders are tackling this year’s Vuelta, even if Ryan finally was not able to imitate his compatriot Sean Kelly in the 1988 race and go all the way to take another win for Ireland at Valdezcaray.

Reeled in at 11 kilometres to go on stage 9, Ryan’s move nonetheless continued a notable trend of this year’s Vuelta – of EF Education-EasyPost’s new wave of young riders being constantly in the breaks and fighting for a chance of success. And as EF sports director Tom Southam at the Vuelta tells Cyclingnews, a much more recent Grand Tour stage victory than Kelly’s – that of Irish racer Ben Healy in the 2025 Tour de France – is helping inspire the next generation of EF teammates to keep punching above their weight.

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“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,” Southam tells Cyclingnews.

“Just like in the Tour, we’re looking for opportunities and with no Richard Carapaz” – a late non-starter after the GC big hitter was expected to head the squad – “there’s nothing like a hierarchy here amongst our riders.”

In EF’s 2025 Vuelta team all bar two of their riders – James Shaw and Esteban Chaves – are 25 or under. Markel Beloki, at 20 the youngest rider in the Vuelta, is their best placed overall rider, at 23:53 on leader Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious) while other up-and-coming EF talents battling it out in Spain include Lukas Nerurkar, 21, Ryan, 23, and Jardi van der Lee, 24.

“In the Giro we did the GC flat-out with Richie” – where the Ecuadorian finished third. “But in these modern Grand Tours and the way teams are going now, you have to look more and more about what you can realistically achieve in these races and that is getting less and less about the podium, certainly for us,” Southam says. “Once a year for us [on the podium] would good, twice a year would be exceptional.”

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This is why Healy’s inspiration for all of the younger generation becomes so important, Southam says, given he was both able to secure a spectacular victory from a long-distance breakaway in the Tour, and then go on to wear the leader’s jersey for three days (including the rest-day) at the end of the first week.

It’s true that the setpiece Grand Tour battles are becoming increasingly linked to the big-budget teams like UAE and Visma, with stage wins an equally important target. However, riders like Healy show that alternative pathways to high-profile success stories with teams like EF still exist.

“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.

“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.”

Sean Quinn in the break on stage 7 (Image credit: Getty Images)

Amongst those young rider doing well in the Vuelta, Southam points to the case of American Sean Quinn, out of racing for much of the season with knee injuries, but already present in three breaks so far in the first week.

This included the stage to Cerler, but even if he fell off the pace in the finale, “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.

“James Shaw is on a good level, too, as is Lukas. And Markel is also on a learning curve and doing well.”

The long shadow of the Tour

 A drop in pressure

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