Ben Healy logged the best Irish performance in over 40 years in the Brabantse Pijl semi-classic on Wednesday, further building on what has been a superb season thus far. The 22-year-old equalled the runner-up slot achieved by Seán Kelly in 1980, finishing second to the Frenchman Dorian Godon in a two-man sprint to the line.
They had been part of the day’s key breakaway, with aggressive riding by Healy reducing the list of contenders to just two. He worked hard with Godon but, conscious the Ag2r Citroën rider had the better sprint, stopped riding through with two slightly uphill kilometres remaining.
Godon led from the front but prevailed regardless, unleashing a huge finishing burst and winning the race.
“It was nice,” Healy said of the race. “I could feel the legs were good. I gave it a good go, but there was a guy just as strong as me today. The gallop to the line ... I think I always knew how that was going to go. I still gave it a really good try, I tried to play the game as best I could, but it wasn’t to be today.
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“I laid it all out there. I know I don’t have the best sprint in the world so I had to try to sit on and hopefully save the legs as best as possible. But when he opened up, I just had nothing to give, so that was that.”
Early on in the race Irish road race champion Rory Townsend (Bolton Equities Black Spoke) was one of four riders who went away inside the first ten kilometres, and who built a lead of over six minutes before being caught by Frenchman Rémi Cavagna (Soudal-QuickStep). Townsend slipped back, but national time trial champion Healy got across and was part of a six man break with 45 kilometres remaining.
Healy attacked with 20 kilometres to go and eliminated all bar Godon and Cavagna from the running, and then surged again four kilometres later and dropped the latter.
His second place and that achieved by Kelly are the only podium finishes by Irish riders in the race’s 63-year history.
Healy has had a superb season thus far, his second year with the EF Education-EasyPost team. He took his first victory as a pro on March 23rd when he won stage three of the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali, then clocked up another win three days later when he soloed to victory in the GP Industria & Artigianato.
More recently he topped the best young rider category in the Région Pays de la Loire Tour. “I think I have made a good step up over the winter,” he said. “I am feeling a lot more confident in myself as well, which is super-nice.”
Earlier, three Irish riders competed in the women’s Brabantse Pijl. Megan Armitage (Arkéa Pro Cycling) rode solidly and rolled in 56th, while national road race champion Alice Sharpe (Israel Premier Tech Roland) and Imogen Cotter (Fenix-Deceuninck) were among a very large group of non-finishers.
Like Healy, Armitage took the first two victories of her pro career in March. She won the final stage plus the overall classification of the Vuelta Extremadura Féminas in Spain.
She will next compete in the Grand Prix Féminin de Chambéry on Sunday, while Healy will line out in the Amstel Gold Race Classic the same day.
