2025 Tour de France Stage 6 Report: Ben Healy put on an incredible display, taking an amazing solo win after attacking an elite break with more than 40km remaining. Meanwwhile the battle for the yellow jersey came down to just one second!
Stage 6 was the perfect combination of twists, turns and hills that just screamed breakaway. The chances of said breakaway then increased after Tadej Pogacar stated this morning that he wouldn’t mind letting a break go and was happy to lose the yellow jersey – result? Everybody wanted to be in the break of the day!
Today’s stage profile – 6 small climbs & up and down all day
After the intermediate sprint at just 22km into the stage won by Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) ahead of Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) the breaks started to go and it was the American champion, Quinn Simmons and EF’s strong man, Ben Healy who were the first to get away.
These two held a lead of just a handful of seconds for what seemed like an eternity as the attacks and counter attacks continued in the peloton behind. Nobody could get across though and the first hour of racing simply flew by at an average of 49.6kph!
Eventually the duo were caught and a flurry of attacks followed but nothing gained more than a few meters until Wout Van Aert (Visma Lease A Bike) and Pablo Castrillo (Movistar) were able to get a 10 second lead. Yes, just 10 seconds.
Just like the pairing of Simmons & Healy these two stayed out the front for a long time but they could never build on their lead and were eventually caught as the kilometers continued to tick by at an incredible speed.
Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was the next to try his luck with the dynamic duo of Healy & Simmons ready to try again and they were soon joined by Harold Tejada (XDS Astana) and Will Barta (Movistar).
This quintet soon reached a very hard fought 30 second lead and Eddie Dunbar (Jayco AlUla) & Michael Storer (Tudor) sensed the danger and bridged across, followed a little later by Simon Yates (Visma). We finally had the break of the day!
The peloton wasn’t giving up though with numerous counter attacks trying to get across but the 8 out the front worked well together and the greatly reduced peloton realized that their chances of a stage victory today had disappeared up the road under the wheels of the magnificent eight.
Mathieu Van der Poel had the most to gain today with this break seemingly propelling him to both the green & yellow jerseys – could he top it all with the stage victory as well?
Van der Poel drove the break in his quest for yellow, green & a stage victory…
Ben Healy didn’t want to risk his chance of the stage victory on the final climb of the day so he decided to attack with a little more than 40km remaining. Surely a suicidal move with 7 strong men working well chasing him behind?
1 vs 7. The odds were not in Healy’s favor…
Yes, the odds were against Healy but the Irishman was on an incredible day. After being in the first attack of the day with Simmons, Healy still had the energy and quickly took his gap out to 50 seconds against the seven behind who were all pulling solid turns.
With just under 30km to go Healy was now being pursued by Simmons & Storer who broke away on the Cote de Saint-Michel but Healy was continuing to increase his lead and was showing zero signs of weakness. The American/Aussie duo behind were doing their best and pulling clear of the Van der Poel led group behind but Healy was simply untouchable, increasing his lead every kilometer.
In the end Healy would win by almost 3 minutes from his fellow first attacker of the day, Quinn Simmons who also did an amazing ride but he was simply outclassed by Healy. Storer took 3rd ahead of Dunbar & Yates but Van der Poel cracked on the final climb and was simply crawling up the climb.
Could he conserve his gap to take back the yellow jersey from Pogacar who was in a fast approaching peloton? Yes was the answer but only by one second!
What a stage by Healy! The man is a machine and the victory was certainly well deserved.
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Tour de France Stage 6 Result:
01 Healy Ben EF Education-EasyPost 04:24:10
02 Simmons Quinn Lidl-Trek + 02:44
03 Storer Michael Tudor Pro Cycling Team + 02:51
04 Dunbar Edward Team Jayco-AlUla + 03:21
05 Yates Simon Team Visma | Lease a Bike + 03:24
06 Barta William Movistar Team + 03:29
07 Tejada Harold XDS Astana Team + 03:52
08 van der Poel Mathieu Alpecin-Deceuninck + 03:58
09 Pogacar Tadej UAE Team Emirates-XRG + 05:27
10 Vingegaard Jonas Team Visma | Lease a Bike + 05:27
Tour de France Overall After Stage 6:
01 van der Poel Mathieu Alpecin-Deceuninck 21:52:34
02 Pogacar Tadej UAE Team Emirates-XRG + 01
03 Evenepoel Remco Soudal Quick-Step + 43
04 Vauquelin Kévin ARKEA-B&B HOTELS + 01:00
05 Vingegaard Jonas Team Visma | Lease a Bike + 01:14
06 Jorgenson Matteo Team Visma | Lease a Bike + 01:23
07 Almeida João UAE Team Emirates-XRG + 01:59
08 Healy Ben EF Education-EasyPost + 02:01
09 Lipowitz Florian Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe + 02:32
10 Roglic Primoz Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe + 02:36
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