Matt Maher: Ben Healy - the new sporting superstar the Black Country doesn’t know it has
Ben Healy is the new sporting superstar most of the Black Country doesn’t know it has.
That’s not just because cycling, for many, might be considered a somewhat niche sport.
When Healy won a stage of last month’s Giro d’Italia, it was hailed a great victory for Ireland. Yet it was also one of the greatest results for a West Midlands racer in the history of the sport.
Though Dudley-born and raised, Healy has ridden under the Irish flag for the past few years, his career was very much forged on Black Country roads and assisted by the area’s cycling community.
“He would never been in this position, if it was not for the Black Country clubs,” reflects dad, Bryan.
“If it wasn’t for Halesowen, Wolverhampton, Stourbridge and all the people around. There really are too many to mention. People who work so hard for others in cycling round here and push people on, giving out their advice for free.”
For Bryan and wife Lisa, who live just a few wheel rotations from Wordsley Glass Cone, the past couple of months have been a wonderful if slightly unexpected experience.
Ben’s second season racing among cycling’s professional elite had already hit new heights when he secured three top four finishes in the Spring Classics, a series of gruelling one-day races in Belgium and the Netherlands.
When his EF Education Easypost team then put him in their squad for the Giro, cycling’s second most prestigious three-week Grand Tour, it was intended merely as the next step in his development with any good results a bonus.
Yet just one week into the race, Healy underlined his reputation as a star in the making with a brilliant solo ride to win stage eight to Fossombrone, his margin of victory the biggest at the Giro for more than five years.
Eight days later, he nearly repeated the trick only to be pipped on the line in stage 15, while he remained in contention for the prestigious King of the Mountains prize, awarded to the best overall climber, until the final days of the race. Not bad going for a 22-year-old many in the sport had never heard of until a few weeks previously.
