'It's inspiring for them' – How Ben Healy's Tour de France success is helping next-gen EF Education-EasyPost riders stay on fire at Vuelta a España

When Jonas Vingegaard attacked late on stage 9 of the Vuelta a España, it made for one of the race's most dramatic finales of recent years – but the Visma-Lease a Bike rider's explosive move and its consequences were far from being the only interesting plot line of the day.

For one thing, the presence of Ireland's Archie Ryan in the five-rider early break on the stage quietly added another important chapter to how EF Education-EasyPost and some of cycling's next generation of riders are tackling this year's Vuelta, even if Ryan finally was not able to imitate his compatriot Sean Kelly in the 1988 race and go all the way to take another win for Ireland at Valdezcaray.

Reeled in at 11 kilometres to go on stage 9, Ryan's move nonetheless continued a notable trend of this year's Vuelta – of EF Education-EasyPost's new wave of young riders being constantly in the breaks and fighting for a chance of success. And as EF sports director Tom Southam at the Vuelta tells Cyclingnews, a much more recent Grand Tour stage victory than Kelly's – that of Irish racer Ben Healy in the 2025 Tour de France – is helping inspire the next generation of EF teammates to keep punching above their weight.

"It's a super young team, a lot of what we're doing is about gaining experience. If we managed to win a stage it'd obviously be fantastic, specially with a squad like this with so many Grand Tour debutants," Southam tells Cyclingnews.

"Just like in the Tour, we're looking for opportunities and with no Richard Carapaz" – a late non-starter after the GC big hitter was expected to head the squad – "there's nothing like a hierarchy here amongst our riders."

In EF's 2025 Vuelta team all bar two of their riders – James Shaw and Esteban Chaves – are 25 or under. Markel Beloki, at 20 the youngest rider in the Vuelta, is their best placed overall rider, at 23:53 on leader Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious) while other up-and-coming EF talents battling it out in Spain include Lukas Nerurkar, 21, Ryan, 23, and Jardi van der Lee, 24.

"In the Giro we did the GC flat-out with Richie" - where the Ecuadorian finished third. "But in these modern Grand Tours and the way teams are going now, you have to look more and more about what you can realistically achieve in these races and that is getting less and less about the podium, certainly for us," Southam says. "Once a year for us [on the podium] would good, twice a year would be exceptional."

This is why Healy's inspiration for all of the younger generation becomes so important, Southam says, given he was both able to secure a spectacular victory from a long-distance breakaway in the Tour, and then go on to wear the leader's jersey for three days (including the rest-day) at the end of the first week.

It's true that the setpiece Grand Tour battles are becoming increasingly linked to the big-budget teams like UAE and Visma, with stage wins an equally important target. However, riders like Healy show that alternative pathways to high-profile success stories with teams like EF still exist.

"Ben knows a lot of our younger group of riders from racing together, they're in a similar age bracket, but how he races is very much of this time – not being afraid to attack, not being afraid to go early, thinking outside the box," Southam explains.

"It's not just our guys who are looking at Ben, either. There are lots of guys across the peloton, too, who are looking at how he's racing and thinking about it. Certainly for our team, in any case, it's given us some notable success on a great platform for these guys to see and aim at."

Amongst those young rider doing well in the Vuelta, Southam points to the case of American Sean Quinn, out of racing for much of the season with knee injuries, but already present in three breaks so far in the first week.

This included the stage to Cerler, but even if he fell off the pace in the finale, "already for Sean, that's a big step forwards after such a really difficult year," Southam said.

"Last time in the Vuelta he couldn't even get into the break, and this time he already has done – repeatedly.

"James Shaw is on a good level, too, as is Lukas. And Markel is also on a learning curve and doing well."

The long shadow of the Tour

When it comes to breaks actually starting and being formed in Vuelta stages, Southam says, the enormous difference in expectations and pressure between July and September, as well as what teams have managed to achieve in the Tour, once again plays a huge role.

"It's completely different. The breaks here in the Vuelta have just gone. So far in the race the fight to get in the move on stage 7 has been the maximum" - in large part due to the presence of former GC contender Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) - "and it took what, 40 minutes?"

"In the Tour the pressure to get in the break is so big and the time taken for it to form is so long that that actually tips back the stages in favour of the GC teams. Nobody will miss a break at the Tour, they just can't and if they do miss it, they'll just keep going and keep going.

"And as a result, the GC squads only have to ride on the front for 50 kilometres because any break never gets a big enough gap in the first place.

Typically in July, Southam says, the gap for a break would be two minutes and then race leaders UAE would decide whether to give the break more margin or not, "so you don't know until quite late what's going to happen."

In the Vuelta, he says, breaks can gain up to seven minutes with Visma before the GC leader's team decides to chase.

"That completely changes the way that teams like us do the race, because the process of going for the break starts right from the start of the stage.

"You'd never, ever get that happening in the Tour. And that makes a massive difference."

 A drop in pressure

However, Southam does recognise that given the excellent results claimed by Healy, there is a drop in pressure on what EF feels it needs to achieve in the Vuelta – but only in comparison to other squads, not internally.

"If I'm being brutally honest, it does work like that. It's not that we take this any less seriously or we don't want to achieve at the same level, but rather that only eight teams won a stage in the Tour. So if you go home from July with nothing in your hands, let's say there's much more pressure on those squads in the Vuelta.

"So it's not that we are saying 'Oh we don't care, we've done well. Rather for the other teams, it's more a case of 'Oh shit, we haven't got anything."

However, the heightened heat on teams to turn things around in the Vuelta a España after a disappointing Tour can prove a two-edged weapon. Rather the need for results makes riders both more prone to making mistakes and less willing to simply take a chance on winning – which the EF squad of young pros can do, knowing that following their good Tour, they have a lot more margin for error. Ultimately, Southam believes, that second pathway creates more probabilities of success as well, even in the Vuelta.

"Added pressure [for results] doesn't always help you in the Vuelta, whereas our guys have got a bit more freedom here, which is why these guys are always in the moves. We're up there a lot, we're fighting for the stages. And that's why: because we're building on the foundations of what we did [with Healy and his teammates] in July."

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