Ben Healy is hoping Tadej Pogacar’s absence from the elite World Road Race Championships in Montreal on Sunday is the key to victory.
He was a superb third behind Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel in last year’s race, the best Irish result since Sean Kelly’s bronze medal in Chambery, France, in 1989.
Healy has experienced a more complicated season this year but appears to be hitting peak form at precisely the right time.
He’ll be up against many of the top stars of world cycling on Sunday but not Pogacar. The Slovenian crashed out on stage 8 of the Vuelta a Espana, sustaining fractures to his neck and collarbone as well as a concussion. He misses the worlds as a result.
"I think it really makes it an open race," Healy said, speaking to RTÉ Sport this week. "When Tadej is there on a course like this, it’s almost inevitable that he’s going to win if he’s in good shape.
"The fact that he’s not there is pretty exciting for a lot of people. I think it’s going to make a very open, chaotic race, which is exactly what I like."
Healy had his own experience of injury this year, suffering a fracture to his sacrum in the Itzulia Basque Country event. He also had a fever in the pre-Tour de France preparation race the Tour Auvergne-Rhóne-Alpes and withdrew.
As a result his Tour didn’t compare to that of 2025, when he won a stage, wore the yellow jersey for two days and ultimately finished ninth overall. And while he got stronger as the race went on, he ran out of time to hit top form.
"I think ultimately what I missed is just that top end race-ready fitness," he confirmed. "By the end of the Tour I was able to go on those bigger attacks because I had a couple of weeks of racing in the legs. Really, that’s what I was missing from the start."
Still, as disappointing as that was for him, he has channelled that frustration into motivation.
"It definitely stokes the fire a little bit," he said. "I just really want to get in a really good last part of the season, and worlds is a really big part of that.
"So 100% it’s been full work, no compromise. Hopefully I can show that in the races to come."
"The Tour was a little bit frustrating."
Healy competed in the San Sebastian Classic after the Tour and then took a break from competition of more than a month. According to his long-time coach Jacob Tipper, it was exactly what was required.
"To be honest, it has just been the first time really we had a good uninterrupted build-up the whole year," Tipper told RTÉ Sport.
"This year we didn’t have the smoothest run into the early season races. We had a couple of issues on training camps. We saw that Ben’s power numbers were good but not everything was perfect. Going into Tirreno [Tirreno-Adriatico] and Strade [Bianche], there were good signs but not everything was 100% where it needed to be.
"And obviously in this day and age, if you are not one of the super freaks, Pogacar, [Paul] Seixas et cetera, then you get found out if you are not 100% on it.
"He got a pretty good block in up to Basque, and then obviously broke his back in that race. Then he got sick in the Dauphiné [the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes] and that illness seemed to affect basically everyone who got it.
"It was the same thing that Wout [Van Aert] got, hence why he didn’t go to the Tour. The same thing that Kevin Vauquelin got and obviously he was pretty below average at the Tour.
"We basically found, for all the bit of preparation and work on weaknesses we did towards the Tour, ultimately for whatever reason he wasn’t as fit as he needed to be. You just can’t not be at full fitness any more. So the Tour was a little bit frustrating.
"He was good, but not the best we have ever seen."
Thankfully, as a result of his focussed block of training, things are in a much better place.
Healy returned to competition earlier this month at the Grand Prix Cycliste races in Quebec and Montréal, and showed particularly good form in the latter.
He went clear in a strong breakaway with 52km to go and then struck out alone with 25km left. Pre-race favourites such as Isaac del Toro and Paul Seixas chased him but strained for a long time to reduce the gap. Indeed Healy actually added to his advantage for some time.
Seixas eventually bridged, as did several others. Healy ultimately finished eighth but was the most aggressive rider in the race and showed glittering form.
Had the teams of Seixas and Del Toro not been so strong in chasing earlier, he might well have stayed clear.
It was a big morale boost for him, and gave real life confirmation that the power numbers he has been putting out in training were indeed representative of how well he is going in competition.
It was also important for another reason: Sunday’s elite road race championships uses the exact same circuit in Montreal, meaning that Healy has shown the hilly laps there should play to his strengths.
"I’ve raced that circuit a couple of times now, so we’ve always had a good idea of what to expect," he said, referring to his recent and past participations in the Grand Prix Cycliste race. "It just confirmed once again it is a super good course for me, and it gives us an idea of how to approach the race on Sunday.
"Doing that race just gives me a lot of confidence. I know that if Sunday’s race is raced right and it goes my way, that I can definitely win."
WHAT IS THE BEST POSSIBLE SCENARIO?
Had Pogacar taken part he would have been the clear favourite for Sunday. He won the past two editions of the worlds, as well as the past three Tours, and looked set to dominate the Vuelta up until the point when he crashed out.
Things are a lot more open now, with Del Toro, Seixas, Remco Evenepoel, Van Aert and others - including Healy - all good enough to take the famous rainbow jersey of world champion.
It could well come down to tactics and, with that in mind, Healy knows what the ideal scenario for him is.
"I’d like just a hard race," he said. "The big favourites Remco, Del Toro and Seixas, if they go full gas on the last lap then I’m probably not going to be able to be able to follow that."
That’s not a due to limitations on his part, but rather to him being a different type of rider.
"I’m super good at a more longer duration effort," he explained. "I’m not quite as explosive, I can’t do a super high power like those other guys for two, three minutes.
"So if I can make that effort as long as possible by opening up the race by attacking early, I believe that’s the best way that I can win these big races."
Because of that, expect to see the other Irish team riders Jamie Meehan (above), Ryan Mullen and Darren Rafferty pushing the pace early on. If they do that and other teams do likewise, that will give Healy the continuous, highly attritional pace he is hoping for.
One of his top strengths is durability, the ability to maintain his composure following hours of difficult racing. If it’s hard enough for long enough, he should have more left in the tank than most.
"If I’m going to race for the win, then I can’t race their race," he continued, referring again to Del Toro, Evenepoel and Seixas. "I’ve got to do my thing and do things a bit differently."
That’s something he is familiar with. Doing things differently is what has brought him the biggest wins of his career.
His rivals know that, but if he’s good enough and the early part of the race is hard enough, Healy could do something really special on the repeated ascents of Montreal’s Voie Camillien-Houde.
