Ben Healy was jumping around off the front on the opening stage in Luxembourg, on his return to racing for the first time after the Tour de France (Photo: Tony Esnault)

Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) has pinned on numbers for the first time since his huge performance at the Tour de France and has looked lively as he builds towards his next big goal; a medal at the World Road Championships in Rwanda.

The former Irish road race champion made the front group at Tour de Luxembourg (2.Pro). He got back into the groove on a 153km stage 1, with almost 2,500m of climbing, and kept his general classification hopes intact for the days ahead.

The Irishman won a stage of the race two years ago, and held the leader’s jersey for a stage, before a 3rd place on the final general classification. However, since then he has stepped up a couple of levels in the pro peloton.

And though he has been away from racing for the best part of two months, he’ll look to take a result this week to boost his confidence towards the Worlds.

Healy scored some king of the mountains points today and responded to an attack with 10km to go by Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step). However, those efforts were closed down by the bunch, paving the way for an uphill bunch sprint.

That was won by young French star Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ), coming less than two weeks after his stage and overall win at Tour of Britain. Healy’s team mate, Marijn van den Berg, was 2nd today, with former overall winner Marc Hirschi (Tudor Pro Cycling Team) 3rd.

Healy was 16th on the day, starting the sprint closer to the front and sliding back a little as the road continued to kick up a long way to the line; Grégoire opening it up from the front a long way out but proving able to keep it going.

Healy was among a group of 41 riders all finishing on the same time as the winner. The race continues tomorrow with 168.4km from Remich to Mamer, with 2,000m of climbing.

3 races, 3 uphill sprints today LOL. The most impressive one was that of Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ) who won the first stage of Tour of Luxembourg with a 30-second sprint.👏🇫🇷 You don’t see this every day, lactic acid king!#SkodaTour2025 pic.twitter.com/mRonD0nVQB

— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) September 17, 2025