Last month’s triumph in the Tour of the Alps has marked out the Australian as one of the leading GC contenders
Few people get to choose their own nickname. And when a sportsperson is labelled as “The Destroyer”, it could go one of two ways. Michael Storer has carried the weighty moniker since Nico Denz coined the nickname during a celebratory dinner for one of the Australian cyclist’s two stage wins at the 2021 Vuelta a España.
Former teammate Denz turned to his native German to find “Der Zestörer” as a nod to Storer riding away to a pair of victories in Spain as much as for the similarities to his surname. Storer backed up his breakout Grand Tour with second place overall in the Tour of the Alps the following year, but had to wait longer before impressing again in a three-week race.
A top-10 finish in last year’s Giro d’Italia was the first sign that Storer might be a general classification challenger in the making. An overall triumph in the Tour of the Alps last month now has the 28-year-old being spoken about as one of the leading GC contenders when the Giro starts in Albania on Friday.
“The Destroyer … yeah, that is my main nickname, at least in the cycling world,” Storer says. “When I’m in my best shape, I can live up to it. Like in the Tour of the Alps, I think I lived up to that nickname, and hopefully I can in some more races this year. But Grand Tours are a lot about following, there aren’t too many riders blowing the rest of the peloton away.”
Storer looked to be in the form of his life at the Tour of the Alps as he launched solo attacks on three of the five stages, each in different circumstances. The early move on stage two went a long way to setting up Storer’s overall victory, but he still had to dig deep to defend the leader’s jersey on the penultimate stage and finally reclaim the lead the next day. Ineos Grenadiers’ Thymen Arensman was the only rider able to keep pace with Storer on the GC, but the Australian is confident he kept enough in reserve to still have the legs to ride out three weeks at a higher level.
This year’s Giro will be missing defending champion Tadej Pogacar but even the absence of the dominant rider of our time is not quite enough to throw the race wide open. Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates teammate Juan Ayuso will also bring strong form to Albania and then Italy, while 2023 winner Primoz Roglic is the heavy favourite to claim his second maglia rosa for Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe.
Storer will be riding the Giro for the third time and his second since joining Tudor Pro Cycling ahead of last season. While a 10th place finish last year and recent success in the mountains will ensure he won’t fly under the radar, let alone ghost into a high finish, Storer is backing himself to make the most of his climbing legs while aiming to “minimise losses” in the two individual time trials.
“I’m feeling really good about the Giro because I’ve held really strong fitness since January and then been slowly building on that,” says Storer, who first showed form this season when winning a stage and finishing fourth overall at Paris-Nice in March. “I’ve hit a good level and then just scraped away at those extra marginal gains. I’ve had a really smooth run up until now.
“I want to target the general classification again but I’d also like to win a stage at the Giro. If I’m really, really good, I can win that from the peloton, otherwise it’ll need to be from a breakaway. Either way, I’ll get something out of the race. Hopefully I can keep up with Roglic and Ayuso, that would be a really good start.”
One of Storer’s old friends will be working against him in the mountains, with fellow Western Australian and 2022 Giro winner Jai Hindley riding in support of Roglic. Hindley has not been back on the podium of a three-week race since finishing runner-up at the 2020 Giro, then becoming the second Australian to win a Grand Tour two years later. The pair of climbers will be among as many as 13 Australians on the start line of the Giro this year, with sprinter Kaden Groves out to add to his eight Grand Tour stage wins and Jay Vine back in form with third place at the Tour de Romandie.
“I saw how Jai won the Giro, which is a very clever way to do it, just stay second and hunt GC in the last week,” Storer says with a laugh. “You don’t have to have responsibility for the pink jersey the whole way, just at the end. I’ve known Jai for ages, since I was 12 years old, and he lives 30kms from my place here [in Italy]. We still go for a couple of training rides together.”
Storer has lived near the mountains of northern Italy for five years after first joining the world tour with Team Sunweb in 2018 and later spending two seasons with Groupama FDJ. While he doesn’t meet up with Hindley as often as they would like, there are enough riders nearby to keep Storer company and he enjoys coming across “strong local amateurs” when he is on what he calls an easy day. A familiarity with the Italian terrain and budding links to the locals has made the Giro the “dream race” for Storer.
“It’s the culture around the race that I like, the vibe is really special,” Storer says. “It’s like real cycling. It’s not like at the Tour [de France] where it’s really international and you get people that aren’t really into cycling going to watch. The Giro is authentic. It still feels like something real.”
Source: www.theguardian.com
