'We'll defend the jersey with everything we've got' - Harry Sweeny's return to Tour de France comes with a new job description

Four years on from his debut participation in the Tour de France, Australian Harry Sweeny could hardly have made a more satisfying return to cycling's biggest bike race, this time facing the new challenge of defending the yellow jersey.

Racing the Tour for the first time since 2021, Sweeny, in part, brought the new task on himself. He was in the thick of the action in the first week, and one of four EF Education-EasyPost riders that made it into the crunch stage 10 breakaway through the Massif Central.

That move concluded with Ben Healy becoming Ireland's first Tour de France leader since Stephen Roche won the race outright in 1987, and Sweeny's contribution earned huge praise from team boss Jonathan Vaughters.

The former pro described Sweeny as the MVP of the 29-strong move that went clear, and estimated that the 27-year-old Australian was responsible for around two minutes of the gap they had created – a gap that ultimately enabled Healy to move into the race leader's yellow jersey. Or as Healy himself put it more succinctly he was "a truck".

"It's been awesome so far," Sweeny told Cyclingnews during the rest day. "To be honest, I think I landed on my feet in my first Tour as well, it's been four long years without being here so I had extra motivation to come and do well.

"Then with Ben here, it was the perfect storm yesterday and the plan came together perfectly. I really like working with Ben and we had the opportunity to do something really special. Particularly when you looked back and there was always one less person on your wheel!"

Sweeny said that he had been largely responsible for the stage 10 breakaway forming. After going over the top of a tough early climb, where there were already a few riders ahead, he opted to push on and see what happened. For a few minutes, looking behind, he could see gaps forming and riders who were already suffering.

"From there on I went as hard as I could. It was difficult to get cooperation in the group going so in the end I did a lot of double turns, but it paid off.

"From the beginning, though, we weren't going to let a group go without Ben in it. So that was our only goal for the day."

Before stage 10 the team's motivation had been boosted, he said, by watching an old video of the 1995 Tour de France Bastille Day mass attack by the Spanish team ONCE, spearheaded by French star Laurent Jalabert. Now with the yellow jersey on the EF team bus at the start of stage 11, the next step will be defending the yellow-hued benefits of that collective effort in the coming days.

"I came here with the goal of going for a stage win myself, and to be honest the first week I didn't have the legs I wanted," Sweeny said.

"I even had Ben riding for me on one stage, because I was a shot for the yellow jersey after I'd been in the first echelon on stage 1, but I didn't have that real snap in my legs and it was quite disappointing. So I shifted back to what I know best, helping the leaders deep into the race."

"I think we'll defend the jersey with everything we've got. So to have my own ambition at this point is a bit hard. I'll just do everything I can to help Ben."

Sweeny said there was nothing specific to his feeling a little bit off in the first week, simply that in the opening parts of a longer race, he's inclined to struggle slightly.

More specifically, tapering for a Grand Tour or stage race is not something that comes easily to him, he said. On the plus side, that means that he's often in great shape after 10 days or two weeks. In this case, that was just when EF Education-EasyPost were looking for their riders to get into the breakaway of the day with Healy, so it was truly a case of the cycling planets aligning for the Australian.

Being in the right position to make the most of that rising form was always part of the equation, too. Sweeny explained that his return to the Tour de France in 2025 had been on the cards as far back as last autumn.

That was because he had done some good work for the team in the Vuelta a España last year with Richard Carapaz and, as a result, it had been more or less decided where he'd be in July 2025 – albeit after a very race-heavy spring that included all the Flemish and Ardennes Classics.

"I had a week's holiday afterwards, then it was straight over to altitude camp," he recounted. "I needed to have an easier buildup to the Tour to make sure I wasn't going to completely cook myself.

"But it was great with the team because I had the confidence that I would be here, I wasn't rushed into trying to peak just to prove I should be in the team. So they had a lot of faith in me."

While he did a lot of work for Carapaz in the Vuelta last year, the situation of defending a leader's jersey in a Grand Tour is a new one for him. His three seasons at Lotto, where he raced between 2021 and 2023, were as he puts it, "very different" given he spent a lot of time working in stages for former Australian sprinter Caleb Ewan. With EF-EasyPost, his job description lists other priorities.

"One of my bigger assets is that I can climb really well, as well as doing all the positioning. So it's an interesting change defending a GC lead, particularly in the Tour."

Whatever happens over the next 12 days, the Tour has been a roaring success for EF-EasyPost and Sweeny has been receiving a lot of congratulatory messages on that account, both from home in Australia and from other Australians in the race, too.

"Even from other teams, Aussies are always happy to see other Aussies do well, and it's been nice to get that," he confirmed.

"It's been overwhelming with the fans and the atmosphere has been crazy, too.

"It's been an interesting Tour. I don't know if I've necessarily enjoyed this first week more because I go better when I have more fatigue or more workload, so that's made things really stressful.

"But I'm never going to complain about walking into the first rest day with the yellow jersey in the team, either!"

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