BEN HEALY was denied victory on Mont Ventoux by a bike length today as Valentin Paret-Peintre delivered a first home stage win of this year’s Tour de France.

Tadej Pogacar dealt with every attack attempted by rival Jonas Vingegaard and even put a couple of seconds into him at the finish to move four minutes 15 clear in yellow, but stage 16 went to the breakaway at the summit of this most feared of Tour climbs.

Healy, who spent two days in yellow last week, was looking to add to his stage six win as he put in another outstanding attacking ride, but Paret-Peintre would not be denied as he came around the Irishman at the summit of the Giant of Provence.

Healy had done the bulk of the work to reel in an attack from Enric Mas and was then the first to launch his move out of a group of four inside the last few hundred metres.

But the effort told as Paret-Peintre, who had been able to get help from team-mate Ilan Van Wilder in the finale, had the kick to get up the final ramp first.

Is is a fourth win of this Tour for Soudal-QuickStep, who lost leader Remco Evenepoel last week.

“How I won that stage is hard to say, I was thinking ‘maybe I can win today, maybe I’m the best climber in this breakaway’,” Paret-Peintre said.

“I asked my team-mates to make a good pace at the bottom and I tried so many times to drop Healy but he was very strong and at the end, I was just waiting for the sprint and then I won.”

Healy and Paret-Peintre were the final two survivors of a 35-strong breakaway on the 171.5km stage from Montpellier to Ventoux, the first finish here since the chaotic scenes in 2016 when Chris Froome was left running up the mountain after breaking his bike in a crash.