Storer continues positive GC trend despite early crash: 'Luckily without major consequences'

On the first climb to Saint-Barthélémy, Michael Storer (Tudor) was spotted off the back of the peloton with a flat tyre. He was able to make a swift return to the peloton, passing the many strugglers on the category one climb in the sweltering heat. 

Storer expanded on the incident he was involved with, one which ultimately had little impact later in the stage.

"Early in the race, a rider rode into me, and that caused me to crash, luckily without major consequences,” explained Storer. "Besides that, it was a good day, and I was feeling good.”

On the final climb to Pila, Storer was in the selective mix alongside his young French teammate Mathys Rondel as Visma | Lease a Bike set a scorching pace for Jonas Vingegaard. The Tudor duo started the stage seventh and twelfth in the GC.

Despite the earlier incident, Storer rode strongly to finish seventh on the stage, 1:35 behind Vingegaard, who stamped his authority on the GC with a third consecutive summit finish stage win. 

"It could have been worse, could have been better. The Giro is long, and we keep fighting until Rome. It was a super hard day made even harder by the heat,” said Storer. 

The Australian is still in the podium hunt, within two minutes of Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) in third.

With the density of mountain stages in the third week, there is still plenty to play for by Storer, who is on track to improve his best Grand Tour finish of tenth in the 2024 and 2025 editions of the Giro. MMeanwhile, Rondel moved up a position to eleventh overall

Fellow Australian GC hopeful Ben O’Connor suffered an incident of his own at the start in Aosta. The Jayco AlUla rider suffered a crash while riding to the sign-on, but was seemingly unimpacted. In the end, O Connor finished sixteenth on the stage, slipping from fifth to eighth in the GC, one place below Storer.