Stage 6

The road

At the start

Pogačar in yellow, Normandy bites

Tadej Pogačar takes the yellow jersey out of Bayeux with Remco Evenepoel at 42 seconds and Jonas Vingegaard 1:13 down after the Caen time trial. Mathieu van der Poel, who led for three days, is sixth at 1:28 and wants the road back. Seven côtes and nearly three thousand metres of climbing lie between here and Vire — a day made for a breakaway, if UAE will let one go.

How it was won

1. 1162 km to go

   Healy makes the break

   A furious fight for the breakaway finally settles on eight men, Ben Healy biding his time in the move — and Mathieu van der Poel, 1:28 down on GC, going with them.

2. 242 km to go

   The long-range raid

   With more than 40km still to race, Healy attacks his breakaway companions and commits to a brutal long solo, time-trialling into a headwind toward Vire.

3. 3At the line

   Healy solos in

   Healy holds off the chase to solo into Vire for a famous victory. Four minutes later Van der Poel drags the rest of the break home, and the seconds he has taken put him back in yellow — one ahead of Pogačar.

The result