Racing

Ben Healy finishes fourth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège

Young Irish rider caps off a breakout Ardennes campaign with stellar ride

April 23, 2023

Just a few weeks ago, very few people could have picked Ben Healy out of the peloton, and even fewer would’ve guess that he would finish fourth at one of the toughest monuments on the calendar – Liège-Bastogne-Liège. But he did just that and surprised even himself along the way.

“If you’d asked me a couple weeks ago that I'd be disappointed with a fourth place at Liège, that's pretty crazy,” said Ben Healy with a big smile on his face after the finish. “Fourth is a nice result I think.”

It was another attritional race at Liège-Bastogne-Liège with the peloton slowly whittling down over the 258-kilometer route. The team did a marvelous job shepherding Ben Healy, Neilson Powless and Esteban Chaves all day. Unfortunately, a poorly timed mechanical took Neilon out of contention while Mikkel Honoré was forced to abandon after crashing with 85-kilometers to go. He has a concussion and is currently undergoing further medical examination to assess elbow and shoulder injuries. 

Soudal-Quickstep set a brutal pace on the front and by the time the bunch got to the lower slopes of La Redoute only a small group of favorites were left including Ben and Esteban. Eventual race winner, Remco Evenepoel launched his attack near the top of the climb creating a small gap to the riders behind. Ben Healy struggled near the top of the climb, finding himself in the third group on the road.

Over the next thirty kilometers, Ben Healy displayed his racing instincts that have been a staple of his Ardennes campaign and moved himself up into the second group on the road. With 13-kilometers remaining, Ben launched another attack and formed a small group of three that would go to the line to fight for the remaining podium positions.

Coming into Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Ben Healy had turned heads with a pair of second place finishes at De Brabantse Pijl and the Amstel Gold Race. But the young twenty-two-year-old had been on stellar form all spring, taking wins at the GP Industria & Artigianato and Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali. Now, with another top result, Ben is hungry for more.

“It’d be nice to come back and compete for a win at a race like this,” said Ben. “But as I said, if you had told me two weeks ago I would’ve bitten your hand off for it.”

We can’t wait to see what the future holds.

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Liège-Bastogne-Liège
Apr. 23, 2023
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Cycling 101: The Monuments

Ben Healy

Ben Healy is one of the best young bike racers of his generation. Born and raised near Birmingham, the 23-year-old is proud of his Irish roots and honored to wear the Bratach na hÉireann colors as the Irish road race national champion.

The 2023 season was Ben’s breakout year. After winning the GP Industria & Artigianato and a stage at Coppi e Bartali, he finished second at Brabantse Pijl and second at the Amstel Gold Race. And then he went and won a stage at the Giro d'Italia with a 50-km solo.

Results like that are a testament to his tenacity.

Ben blazed his own way to the pro ranks. He was riding at his local track by the time he was five years old. Growing up, he was there every Sunday morning to train and race. But his first love was mountain biking. That meant hucking himself off the established track for a young bike racer in Britain. Ben dropped out of the academy and decided to go it alone.

Racing mountain bikes and road bikes on smaller teams, he soon had stage wins at the Giro Ciclistico d’Italia and the Ronde de l’Isard to his name, as well as Irish road and time trial championship titles. In 2019, Ben became the youngest ever winner of a stage at the Tour de l’Avenir.

And now, he has shown that he can go toe-to-toe with the best bike racers in the world in the sport’s greatest races.

Ben loves getting in breakaways and surprising his rivals with his daring attacks. He is as aero as anyone in the peloton and is always looking for the latest edge.

Last to go will be his flowing black locks. Away from the races, Ben likes big cities and hanging out with his friends from art school.

He is an explosive climber, who wants to find out what he can do over the course of a grand tour. So does the rest of the world. The only thing that’s for certain is that Ben Healy is going to keep racing his own way.

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Neilson Powless

When Neilson Powless started racing X-Terra triathlons with his sister back home in Northern California, he just wanted to spend time outside and rip around the trails near his house. His first love was mountain-biking. It was his best discipline in those off-road triathlons, and when he got to high-school, there were all sorts of chances for him to compete in California’s mountain-bike league. Soon, he was travelling with the US national team, racing junior world cups and championships against the world’s most talented mountain-bikers. Race in and race out, Neilson proved he was one of them.

Then he decided he wanted to have a go on the road.

Neilson has progressed steadily since he turned pro in 2018, thanks to his hard-work and diligent approach to training. In 2020, Neilson Powless became the first tribally recognized Native North American to race the Tour de France. The next year, our rising American star won Spain’s greatest one-day race, the Clásica San Sebastián, and finished fifth at the world championships in Belgium. Neilson was stellar in 2022. After a strong campaign in the Ardennes, he finished fourth on GC at the Tour de Suisse and lit up the Tour de France. He finished the year off with a victory at the Japan Cup.

The 2023 season was his best yet. Neilson won his first race of the year: the Grand Prix Cycliste de Marseille. He then won the overall at Étoile de Bèsseges and stormed the Flemish classics, finishing third at Dwars door Vlaanderen and fifth at De Ronde in his debut campaign on the cobbles. At the Tour, he captured hearts with a stellar run in the King of the Mountains jersey.

Neilson lives in Nice, France with his wife and baby girl during the racing season. He enjoys exploring their new city and relaxing on the beach after hard rides through the Alps.

If he can find time in his schedule, Neilson would like to get back to his roots, and do some off-road alternative racing in 2024.

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Mikkel Honoré

Mikkel Honoré loves to light up races in EF Education-EasyPost pink. The Dane is a very versatile rider. He has the horsepower and skill to shepherd our GC captains through a racing peloton during the hardest grand tour stages. A great climber with a strong finishing kick, who can hold his own on the cobbles, Mikkel has sprinted to stage victories at the Tour of the Basque Country and Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali—two of the hilliest stage races on the calendar. He is consistently at the front of the biggest races and always ready to do his turn for his teammates. We count on Mikkel to be there for us at crucial moments in grand tours and attack the finales of the great one-day races. He’ll go for more victories himself.

Mikkel lives in Switzerland, near the shores of Lake Como. He loves to travel and always has a book with him on the bus. Reading takes him away from the bubble of racing and training. He enjoys philosophy and novels and will always read up on the places where we race to better understand the people who live in the countryside that we pass through.

Mikkel is a great basketball fan. He and his wife will go watch a game together whenever they get the chance.

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