Ben Healy suffered a very nasty spill yesterday, at 50kmph while on his TT bars, during the recon ride at Itzulia Basque Country (Photo: Mirror Media)Ben Healy’s disappointing time in the opening TT at Itzulia Basque Country (2.UWT) was eye-catching from the wrong reasons. The EF Education-EasyPost rider was way down the field – on a hilly TT course that should have suited him. He finished in 36th, some 1:13 off runaway stage winner Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team).
However, Healy hit a spectator during his recon ride. By his own account, he hit her very hard while he was in the TT position doing 50kmph, meaning it was a minor miracle he managed to do so well in the test.
The woman was either on her bike, or walking with her bike, and trying to cross the road on the course, when Healy arrived into that location at speed and hit her. Thankfully, there were no reports of serious injury for either Healy or the woman.
“I was going quite fast, I took a bit of a tumble and, to be honest, I was just happy to be able to start with no broken bones yesterday,” Healy told the media at the start of today’s opening road stage of the week-long race.
“She nipped across a crossing when the road was closed. And I was doing 50k an hour in the skis. I had nowhere to go,” added Healy of the incident at a designated crossing, which are usually expertly policed by officials to avoid any accidents.
“But I’m able to race, and hopefully over the next few days, I can recover a bit. It’s Itzulia, it’s a great race. I’m glad to be here. I’m a little bit stiff, but I’ve no major injuries so thankfully I can race today.
“After yesterday, I just have to take it day-by-day and see how it goes. But, for sure, I think it’s such a hard race that, even after today, I think there could be some big GC gaps. We’ll see how the week goes.”
Jamie Meehan (Cofidis) is also in action this week at Itzulia and he placed 137th in the TT, at 2:50, in a race where he will be unlikely to ride for GC. However, given the Donegal rider’s rate of progress, he may get into some breakaways and has the legs to take a result.
For Healy, his week will be largely dictated by how he recovers from that nasty spill yesterday. At this race last year, he started out aiming for a GC ride. When that didn’t quite pan out, he went on the attack over the last three stages.
He spent a whopping 280km up the road and claimed a spectacular victory on stage 5, and was 3rd the next day. He took that stage 5 win after being up the road for 154km, the final 57km solo.