{"id":167333,"date":"2025-09-29T04:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T04:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/167333\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T04:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T04:21:09","slug":"road-world-championships-performance-puts-ben-healy-in-different-category-could-target-tour-de-france-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/167333\/","title":{"rendered":"Road World Championships performance puts Ben Healy in ‘different category’, could target Tour de France glory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Healy was overjoyed after finishing third in the UCI Road World Championships<\/a> elite men\u2019s road race, and the Breakaway team hailed the Irishman\u2019s immense achievement.<\/p>\n

Healy became the first rider from his country to secure a World Championships podium place since Sean Kelly in 1989.<\/p>\n

It was a superb display from Slovenia’s Pogacar, who followed on from winning his first road race title in Zurich last year with another victory here.<\/p>\n

Merely finishing this race was an achievement in itself, given only 30 of the 164 riders made it to the end.<\/p>\n

So, the immense fortitude which Pogacar showed to come out on top, as he has done so often in his career, cannot be underestimated.<\/p>\n

As for Healy, he mastered the challenging terrain through Kigali with aplomb, securing third in the closing kilometres to take a hard-fought bronze.<\/p>\n

Adam Blythe waxed lyrical about the 25-year-old\u2019s achievement in a landmark year that also saw him secure a stage win at the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

“He is someone’s hero back home, which is a lovely thing to be,” said Blythe on TNT Sports\u2019 Breakaway show.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think he would have grasped it, but after the year that he had this year, with the yellow jersey in the Tour, he’s just progressed and progressed.<\/p>\n

“He’s getting better. I feel he’s going to be stronger and even better next year.<\/p>\n

“The nice thing about Ben is he’s always a rider that’s there and one to watch, but he’s never the obvious one, which I love about him.<\/p>\n

“He’s always the underdog and does things in almost the hard way. I love watching him, and he’s just a great person to support and a great ambassador for our sport as well.”<\/p>\n

\"picture\"<\/p>\n

\u2018Insane\u2019 \u2013 Healy on third-place finish at worlds<\/p>\n

Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n

Healy\u2019s humble nature is also an endearing quality for Blythe, and he explained that the Irishman underestimates his own talent.<\/p>\n

He continued: “There were a lot of people like Remco who had an expectation of winning that race, who were very disappointed with everything that happened.<\/p>\n

“But Ben there [in footage of the finish] was celebrating third. I love that, because it’s almost unexpected.<\/p>\n

“He doesn’t even know how good he is, so that leading into next year is almost like a surprise to him.”<\/p>\n

Dani Rowe echoed Blythe\u2019s sentiments, and believes the sky is the limit for what Healy can go on to achieve.<\/p>\n

“This is huge for Ben Healy, for Ireland, and as you say, he’s such a huge model to so many in Ireland,” Rowe said. <\/p>\n

“What it does, it puts him into a different category. He was ninth on GC in the Tour de France, so even that could be a goal for the future, the yellow jersey.”<\/p>\n

The EF Education\u2013EasyPost rider also reflected with pride on his achievements, and was in disbelief to share a podium with Pogacar and Evenepoel.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s pretty special. I\u2019ve done a lot of hard work this season for this and to stand on the podium with Remco and Tadej is pretty incredible,” said Healy in quotes published by efprocycling.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This season is just getting crazier and crazier to be honest. From a stage win and the yellow jersey at the Tour to now the podium at Worlds, it is hard to compare.”<\/p>\n

Watch the cycling season live on TNT Sports and discovery+.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Healy was overjoyed after finishing third in the UCI Road World Championships elite men\u2019s road race, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[75645,4985,101,66007,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-167333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ben-healy","9":"tag-cycling","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uci-road-world-championships","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}