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Giro 2023; Ben Healy can finish on the podium in Rome
03 May 2023, by Bert Lip
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Ben Healy is the revelation of the season so far (see figure 1). Finishing 2nd and 4th in respectively Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège is an achievement few people had expected at the start of the season. 

Figure 1. Highest point increase compared to previous 2 seasons.

#RiderPoint increase2 years agoPrevious seasonThis season
1 HEALY Ben
586
893637
2 JORGENSON Matteo
406
209410715
3 GEOGHEGAN HART Tao
330
208377622
4 COSTA Rui
309
312212571
5 MAYRHOFER Marius
237
397260
6 GOOSSENS Kobe
198
72139303
7 CICCONE Giulio
198
357484619
8 MULUBRHAN Henok
198
43173306
9 DVERSNES Fredrik
192
3740231
10 PETERS Nans
178
2875230
11 VAN GILS Maxim
165
135311388
12 CALZONI Walter
162
124175
13 FRISON Frederik
158
3550201
14 SOUPE Geoffrey
157
1210168
15 LANDA Mikel
155
560790830
16 KRAGH ANDERSEN Søren
139
206356420
17 VAN DEN BERG Marijn
137
112200293
18 VAN HOOYDONCK Nathan
134
143105258
19 TIBERI Antonio
128
74129230
20 GALL Felix
122
34261270
21 RUBIO Einer Augusto
119
164236319
22 PEREZ Anthony
118
139176275
23 LAZKANO Oier
118
25128194
24 MEIJERS Jeroen
116
1235140
25 SÁNCHEZ Pelayo
110
447136
26 STEINHAUSER Georg
108
5315.83142
27 GLOAG Thomas
107
3363155
28 MENTEN Milan
103
268220347
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Although the 22-year old had his success in one day races, he won GP Industria this year, there is still little to show as it comes to general classifications. Now he is about to start his first grand tour ever with the Giro d'Italia and we asked ourselves the question, can Ben Healy finish on the podium in Rome?

In our article about the favorites for the Giro, there is no Ben Healy within the top-20 generated by the formula. That makes sense as there are only few results from Healy that are considered by the algorithm. This phenomenon is called the prediction explanation fallacy. As our formula is based upon historical results, it will never predict a first time result for a rider and for this reason young talented riders are often undervalued in predictions. 

Up to this point in his career, Healy has accumulated 107 PCS points in GCs from the 5 stage races at professional level he finished. The longest stage races he did were Tour de l'Avenir in 2019 and 2021 and Giro Ciclistico d'Italia in 2021, all 10 days long.  In total he has 88 racedays in professional races. Let us take a look at past Giro editions. The following table lists the rider in the top-10 with the least GC points before the start of that edition. 

Figure 2. Top10 rider with least GC points per year

YearResultRiderGC pointsRacedaysSeason points
202210 LÓPEZ Juan Pedro28715963
20219 FOSS Tobias1276663
20204 ALMEIDA João29564344
20199 SIVAKOV Pavel29193245
20184 CARAPAZ Richard376118246
201710 FORMOLO Davide81523183
20169 ATAPUMA Darwin74230216
20154 AMADOR Andrey50842628
20143 ARU Fabio2289178
20137 MAJKA Rafał1531375
20129 HENAO Sergio12733162
20118 KRUIJSWIJK Steven19817822
20107 PORTE Richie21855120
200910 SEELDRAEYERS Kevin330149155
20089 POZZOVIVO Domenico24014453
20076 RICCÒ Riccardo171100433
200610 VILA Francisco Javier712310353
20053 RUJANO José Humberto13144198
20041 CUNEGO Damiano258121367
20033 POPOVYCH Yaroslav34471199
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Last year Juan Pedro López from Trek-Segafredo finished 10th, including 10 days in the Maglia Rosa. At that point he had only one top-10 GC result in his career, 6th place in Tour de Hongrie 2019. Maybe even more unexpected was the 9th place of Tobias Foss in 2021. Before that he accumulated only 127 GC points in professional races, roughly equal to that of Ben Healy now. Foss had only 66 racedays in professional races before starting that Giro. Another interesting fact, he managed to finish 9th with only two top-10 stage results. 

In 2014 we find that Fabio Aru finished on the podium with only 228 GC points upfront and 91 professional racedays. He took his first career victory in stage 15 of that Giro. Noted that it was the second grand tour he started, as he rode the Giro also the year before, finishing 42nd.


In the last column of figure 2 we have listed the number of PCS points that the rider scored in the season so far before starting in the Giro d'Italia. Of the 20 riders that finished in the top-10 with the least GC points, no one had as much points as Healy already has this season, 637 points. On the other side, no rider in the last 20 years finished in the top-10 with the (lack of) GC palmares of Healy. 

With his results in the Arden classics, his climbing strength looks good although he needs to prove himself on longer climbs as well and over a 3-week period. How about his time trial skills? In 4 out of his last 5 time trials he finished top-10, obtaining a 3rd result in Coppi e Bartali, lagging only 19 second behind TT specialist Rémi Cavagna

Figure 3. Total time trial points scored for the GC favorites in the last 3 years.

Figure 4. What was the best TT result in the past 12 months for the GC favorites?

When we accumulate the TT points for GC riders for the last 3 years, we can find Ben Healy back on position 12. Again, a chart like this favours riders that have had stable TT results for the past 3 years. Figure 5 shows the best TT result (excluding NCs) in the past 12 months for a selection of GC riders. Sorting this way, Healy comes up 5th. 

In conclusion we can state that Ben Healy can finish on the Giro podium this year. He has shown good form, has a solid time trial and is a strong climber. At the moment of writing, he is listed 58th in the PCS game in number of stars for the final GC. 

Poll

Ben Healy can finish on the podium in the Giro d'Italia 2023.
  • Disagree
    347 (80.0%)
  • Agree
    67 (15.4%)
414 votes

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