Ben Healy on a mission in final days of Tour de France

Five days remain in this year's Tour de France, and four of them look promising for Irish rider Ben Healy.

The 23-year-old has been one of the most aggressive riders in this year’s event, riding above even his own expectations in what is his debut Tour.

Healy has been repeatedly on the attack, starting in that fashion on the opening stage and then again as part of a much longer breakaway move on a dramatic stage nine to Troyes.

Bridging across to the day’s breakaway after a long chase, he was clear for a total of 148 kilometres of the gravel stage, eventually finishing fifth.

He was aggressive again on the mountainous stages 11, 14 and 15, racking up a total of 366 kilometres off the front.

Healy went solo from the breakaway group on the first two of those stages, dropping the rest, and would normally have been set for victory.

However a huge battle between teams of the race leader Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) this year has meant that breakaways haven’t been able to build the usual stage-winning advantage.

As a result, his moves were hauled back before the finish line.

EF Education EasyPost team sporting director Tom Southam explained the frustration to RTÉ Sport this week, as well as praising Healy.

"Ben has obviously done a great race so far," he said. "He has been racing in the way we had planned for him in coming to the Tour, which was to go for stage wins.

"Honestly, he has put in two performances in particular where he has got into the break and been the strongest climber.

"Unfortunately on both those days the GC [general classification] battle raged behind and meant the stage win wasn’t on the cards.

"That was unfortunate because I think he has put in the performances to have won