Ben Healy and Romain Grégoire ripping it up off the front during the final – wet – stage at Tour de Luxembourg today (Photo: Anouk Flesch)
Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) went on the attack on the final stage of Tour de Luxembourg with Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ), to light up a very tough day on the bike in sodden conditions over 176km of racing.
However, Healy was just caught out by his French rival as they crested the final climb with just 1.1km to go to the finish. Grégoire is clearly still carrying the form that won him the Tour of Britain, as Healy is still building his condition on returning to racing.
The duo attacked the peloton with about 25km to go and quickly caught and dropped the remaining breakaway men from the main escape. They then set about trying to hold off the peloton, which was still very much racing for general classification honours.
When Grégoire made his move on the 800m Pabeierbierg, averaging 9.2 per cent, he eked out an advantage of a matter of lengths on Healy, after the Irish rider lacked a little for just a couple of seconds.
Though Healy chased him down the climb, all the way to the line, and the gap remained very small, Grégoire won the day by just one second, adding the stage victory to his win on stage 1.
For Healy, his 2nd place today follows 3rd in yesterday’s TT and saw him move up six positions in the final general classification; placing 6th some 1:20 behind overall victor Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates).
Behind the leading duo today, the reduced peloton split to pieces on the final climb as Healy’s team mate, Richard Carapaz, went all-out to try and improve his GC position of 3rd, though to no avail.
On the line, the favourites’ group was led in by Senna Remijn (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who took 3rd place at 55 seconds, with only five of the main favourites credited with the same time as the young Dutch rider.
However, the top three in the general standings did not change; McNulty holding firm in the race leader’s jersey to win by 47 seconds from Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), with Carapaz in 3rd at 1:04.
Healy unexpectedly lost time on Friday’s hilly stage, and dropped down the general classification. However, his racing this weekend suggests he is in very good form ahead of the road race at the Worlds for Ireland next Sunday in Rwanda, where he is a genuine medal contender.
Romain Grégoire a remporté la dernière étape du #skodatour devant Ben Healy. Brandon McNulty s’est adjugé le classement général #skodatour2025 pic.twitter.com/YjYP8VoVd6
— 🚴 Les Rois du Peloton 🚲 (@LRoisDuPeloton) September 21, 2025