{"id":256556,"date":"2025-11-11T09:43:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T09:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/256556\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T09:43:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T09:43:08","slug":"most-young-19-20-year-old-pros-would-hate-that-advice-with-a-passion-why-ben-healy-stood-out-from-his-peers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/256556\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMost young, 19, 20 year old pros would hate that advice with a passion\u201d \u2014 Why Ben Healy stood out from his peers"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Vaughters explained that many young riders are distracted by social media, trying to mimic what the best riders do. \u201cMost of the time with these young, hot shot kids these days, they want to do it the way they saw it on Instagram or on TikTok. They want to do it the way they saw Tadej Poga\u010dar do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaughters used a colourful and unconventional example to underline his point regarding how easily influenced young riders are by online advice. \u201cAnd they\u2019re like, \u2018well, I read that the this doctor Peter Attia said that you have to eat elephant testicles or whatever in order to win.\u2019 And so we sort of always have to fight against that. We\u2019re like, \u2018well, okay, maybe, but maybe we should try it out a little bit more of a basic route first. Again, going back to the \u2018eat your meat and potatoes before you get your dessert\u2019 argument. With Ben, we made that argument, and he said, \u2018yeah, okay, that makes sense.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A careful start to a pro career<\/p>\n

Healy first made headlines in 2019 as the youngest-ever stage winner at the Tour de l\u2019Avenir. After turning pro with EF Education – EasyPost in 2022, the team wanted him to progress calmly but steadily. \u201cOne of the oddest things we did with Ben in his first year as a pro was we said, \u2018listen, Ben, we don\u2019t know what kind of rider you are yet,\u2019\u201d Vaughters recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo train hard up until the start of the season, but then once the season starts, we want you to just go out and ride your bike for three or four hours a day. Don\u2019t push on the pedals too hard any one given day, because your schedule is not really made up yet. We\u2019re going to send you to all kinds of different races.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe might call you up two days before the race and say, \u2018Hey buddy, you\u2019re gonna go to this one, sorry for the last minute notice. So we don\u2019t want you tired. What we want you is fresh, even if you\u2019re a little under conditioned. We want you to be able to do all kinds of different races and get the most out of those races, because you\u2019re going into it with a fresh mind and fresh legs. And then in year two, let\u2019s talk about being more specific about how to do things once we figure you out a little bit\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaughters noted that most young pros would resist such advice, but Healy just accepted it. \u201cFor the most part, most young, 19, 20 year old pros would hate that advice with a passion,\u201d he said. \u201cBut Ben basically said, \u2018yeah, okay, sounds good.\u2019 And he did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rising fast in his second season<\/p>\n

Healy\u2019s first season was modest, with a victory in the Irish national TT championships and solid results like fifth in a stage of the Tour of Norway, sixth in the European TT championships, and sixth in the prologue of the Deutschland Tour.<\/p>\n

His second season, however, was a completely different story. He won early season races such as the one-day race GP Industria & Artigianato and stage 3 of the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali, finishing third overall.<\/p>\n

He impressed in the Ardennes Classics as well, placing second in both the Amstel Gold Race and Brabantse Pijl, and fourth in Liege-Bastogne-Liege<\/a>. He also claimed a stage win in his first Grand Tour, the Giro d\u2019Italia, and later won the national road race championships and a stage of the Skoda Tour of Luxembourg.\"BenHealy<\/p>\n

Ben Healy wore the yellow jersey at the 2025 Tour de France, although not for long<\/p>\n

Vaughters praised Healy\u2019s development, highlighting very few would have expected what he ended up doing. \u201cI think his progression in the sport of cycling has been way beyond what anyone would have thought when he was a U23 rider. Partially, it\u2019s because he let the sport come to him a little bit, as opposed to forcing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his GC potential, which was made clear especially after he finished ninth in the Tour de France overall this year, Healy has made clear he will continue attacking and hunting stages rather than adopting a conservative strategy.<\/p>\n

Vaughters completely agrees with that stance. \u201cI don\u2019t think a conservative GC strategy for Ben makes sense, really. Eventually, if you get to the point where you\u2019re actually trying to win the Tour, or even podium, then of course you do have to take a different stance. But at least for the immediate future, I would say that a conservative sort of sit and wait and wait and wait and wait strategy for Ben doesn\u2019t feel right. It doesn\u2019t feel right for him and it doesn\u2019t feel right for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vaughters explained that many young riders are distracted by social media, trying to mimic what the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-256556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256556","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=256556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}