Healy takes yellow jersey at Tour de France

Ben Healy is just the fourth Irish cyclist to wear the famous Yellow Jersey as he leads the Tour de France after 10 stages of this year's race.

A monster Bastille Day stage through the Massif Central delivered the fireworks as Healy put in a huge shift in the break to maintain a sizeable gap over the chasing peloton, fighting his way to third on the stage and then counting the seconds until Tadej Pogacar crossed the line.

The 24-year-old now holds a 29 second lead over Pogacar in the general classification ahead of the first rest day on Tuesday.

Stephen Roche was the last Irishman to lead the Tour de France, when he won the race in 1987. Sean Kelly (1983) and Shay Elliott (1963) are the only other Irish riders to ever lead the race.

"It's a fairytale," Healy admitted afterwards, "If you'd told me this before the Tour, I wouldn't have believed you. A stage win and the yellow jersey is incredible, beyond belief really."

"It's some pretty crazy footsteps to follow," he admitted after joining Elliott, Kelly and Roche for company. "I'm just super proud to represent Ireland and wear the yellow jersey for them. Hopefully, I can do it justice."

Having ridden to a superb victory on Stage 6, the EF Education-EasyPost cyclist started the day 3' 55" down on Pogacar in yellow, but took advantage of a favourable stage profile to get himself into a large breakaway, which managed to stay well clear of the peloton as GC favourites Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard failed to muster a fight until late in the stage.

Healy took control in the closing stages of the 165.3-kilometre trip through the Central Massif from Ennezat to Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy, taking the leading group of five over the penultimate of eight categorised climbs.

Simon Yates and Ben O'Connor broke away from the Irishman at the foot of the final climb, with Thymen Arensman also getting ahead of Healy, who looked to be paying for all his hard work.

However he dug in in the closing stages to consolidate third place behind stage winner Yates of Visma-Lease a Bike and Arensman of Ineos Grenadiers.

Healy finished 30 seconds behind Yates in third to gain four bonus seconds.

Pogacar put in a late dig as he traded blows with rival Vingegaard, but when the world champion came in four minutes 51 seconds behind Yates, 4:20 behind Healy, the yellow jersey swapped shoulders with Healy.

"It was insanely tough, it was a battle against myself really," Healy said. "I just had to dig deep. My team-mates put in so much work today, Harry (Sweeny) and Alex (Baudin), I really, really wanted to pay them back and I’m happy I could do that in the end.

"I kind of gambled a bit. I had the stage win in the bank and how often do you get the opportunity to put yourself into yellow so I felt I had to take that and really go for it."

Healy was asked if the focus had now changed from stage victories to riding for the yellow jersey.

"I think it would be rude not to," he said. "You've got to respect the jersey. I'm in quite a nice position now and I've just got to try and hold on for as long as possible."

Remco Evenepoel lost six seconds to Pogacar in the final and is now a full minute behind the world champion in third place, 16 seconds clear of fourth-placed Vingegaard.