Tour de France preview: Irish duo dreaming big as action gets under way in Florence

Sam Bennett will be looking to add to his two Tour stage wins and may even be good enough to challenge for a second green jersey by the time the race ends in Nice, while Ben Healy will be looking for a repeat of his debut at the Giro d’Italia last year, where he won stage eight for his EF Education-Easypost team.

Bennett may have to bide his time before getting the chance to contest a bunch sprint finish, however, with the race tackling the mountains early on a tougher than usual opening weekend.

Today’s opener sees seven categorised climbs and 3,600m of climbing on the road to Rimini. With three of them second-category ascents, there is sure to be plenty of action as riders go in search of the first King of the Mountains jersey and yellow jersey of the race.

A strong climber, Healy will be looking for any opportunity to infiltrate a breakaway group. And with another six climbs on the menu tomorrow, the opening weekend should suit the aggressive 23-year-old.

“I’d like to try and win a stage,” Healy said before the Grand Depart in Italy. “That’s what I’m good at. That’s what I want to go and try to do. I need a pretty hard day out with a hard finish. Stage one looks really good for me but there are a few towards the end as well.”

Bennett, on the other hand, will look to conserve energy this weekend in order to arrive at the first possible sprint finish at the head of affairs in Turin on Monday.

“I’ve got plenty of time to get into the race, as the start is hilly,” said the Carrick-on-Suir man, who will share leadership responsibilities for Decathlon-Ag2r-La Mondiale. “Nevertheless, every stage is important, the first opportunity will come after the opening weekend, and I hope to be ready for that.

“I have a few days, so hopefully I’ll get there a bit fresher and definitely should be in week two and week three. There should be eight massive sprints with lots of contenders. I’m looking forward to the fight.”

Among those contenders for the sprint finishes will be the in-form Dane Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), last year’s green jersey Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin–Deceuninck), Dutch duo Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco–AlUla) and Fabio Jakobsen (DSM), newly crowned Belgian champion Arnaud de Lie (Lotto–Dstny) and the evergreen Mark Cavendish (Astana) who will be looking to take a record 35th stage win at the Tour this year in his last professional race.

“I think he’ll get it,” said Bennett of the Manx man’s record attempt. “There’s enough sprints there, enough opportunities. If you look at the Tour of Hungary where ‘Cav’ won a stage recently, he went first with Dylan on the wheel, who was going OK at the time, but ‘Cav’ held on and won, so there’s life in the old dog yet.”

The battle for overall victory will depend on how well defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and others have recovered from early-season crashes if they are to topple the in-form Tadej Pogacar of UAE Emirates.

The two-time Tour winner has swept the floor with all in front of him so far this season, winning six stages on the way to beating his nearest rival into second place by six minutes on the Giro d’Italia in May.

“It’s my fifth time coming to the Tour and I’m really excited about it,” said Pogacar. “We’ve worked really hard all year as a team to prepare for this and we hope we can give everyone watching three weeks of exciting racing.​

“It’s nice also to be going back to Italy again to start the Tour. Obviously, I’m coming from there with good memories of the Giro and, thankfully, I can say that preparation has gone very well since then.

“I took a bit of a break after the Giro and then the past weeks have been fully focused on the Tour.”

Pogacar will have the strongest team in the race behind him, including recent Tour of Switzerland winner Simon Yates, runner-up Joao Almeida and former U-23 Tour de France winner Juan Ayuso, who took overall victory at the Tour of the Basque Country this year.

Having won Italian stage race Tirreno-Adriatico in April, defending Tour champion Vingegaard crashed out of the Tour of the Basque Country a few weeks later, breaking several ribs, a collarbone and puncturing a lung. The Dane spent 12 days in hospital and hasn’t raced since, so there isn’t much current form to go on.

“The last few months have not always been easy, but I thank my family and Team Visma-Lease a Bike for their unwavering support. We have worked together to get to this moment and, of course, I am very excited to see where I stand. I feel good and very motivated.”

Slovenian Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) was caught up in the same crash as Vingegaard in the Basque Country and was off the bike for two months afterwards despite not having any broken bones.

​A return to racing saw him win two stages and the overall at the big pre-Tour tune-up, Criterium du Dauphine, two weeks ago. If the former ski jumper can keep it upright for the next three weeks he may present a challenge for honours.

Another Tour contender caught up in the same crash was Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step).​

The 2022 Vuelta a Espana winner broke a collarbone and scapula and didn’t return until the Dauphine, where he won the time trial but lost time in the mountains.

“The plan is to discover the race,” Evenepoel said. “Take it one day at a time and see where this leads us.”

Others to look out for over the next three weeks are Healy and Ayuso’s new generation of stars like FDJ duo Romain Gregoire and Lenny Martinez, British pair Fred Wright (Bahrain) and Oscar Onley (DSM), Spaniards Oier Lazkano (Movistar) and Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos), Canadian Derek Gee (Israel PremierTech) and newly crowned French champion Paul Lapeira (Decathlon-Ag2r).

Tour de France, Live, TG4, 10.50/Eurosport, 10.30