Thymen Arensman narrowly missed out on a stage victory in his Tour de France debut on Monday. The Dutchman finished second in a challenging mountain stage, behind Simon Yates. Ben Healy took the yellow jersey.
Arensman and Yates were in a breakaway group of 29 riders on Quatorze Juillet, the French national holiday. The two climbers engaged in a thrilling duel on the final climb to Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy, which was won by the Briton from Visma-Lease a Bike. Arensman finished nine seconds behind.
Healy crossed the finish line in third place, 31 seconds behind, and took over the lead in the general classification from Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian finished together with Jonas Vingegaard, 4 minutes and 51 seconds behind Yates, while Healy had a deficit of 3 minutes and 55 seconds. The 24-year-old climber from EF Education-EasyPost is the first Irish wearer of the yellow jersey since Stephen Roche in 1987.
Visma-Lease a Bike tried to put Pogacar under pressure in the final, but the first real mountain stage of this Tour did not result in any time differences between Pogacar and Vingegaard. Remco Evenepoel lost six seconds to the two top favorites. In the general classification, Healy has a 29-second lead over Pogacar, 1 minute and 29 seconds over Evenepoel, and 1 minute and 46 seconds over Vingegaard.
The riders will have the first rest day of this Tour on Tuesday. The race continues on Wednesday with a hilly stage around Toulouse. After that, the peloton heads into the Pyrenees.