‘I had no idea': Chris Harper happy to share spotlight after Simon Yates banishes Giro d'Italia demons
Australian cyclist Chris Harper is yet to properly soak up the ride of his life and first Grand Tour stage victory by watching a replay of his long-range and daring solo attack over the Colle delle Finestre and up the Sestrière. But the 30-year-old climber won't have to look too hard to find highlights in the future after his ride was a major subplot as the decisive story of the 2025 Giro d'Italia unfolded behind him.
Harper arrived in Albania for the opening three stages of the Giro with ambitions to prove himself as a general classification contender. A top-10 placing by the time the three-week race finished in Rome was the realistic goal. But a bout of illness hit the Team Jayco AlUla rider on the second rest day and Harper had to lift himself in the third week just to turn his focus toward chasing a stage win.
After working his way into the major breakaways that were all chased down on successive days, Harper thought his race was all but done as the Giro landed in Verrès for the penultimate day and queen's stage with more than 4,500m of climbing over 205km to come. Yet almost by accident, Harper found himself in another break, felt he was on a good day and with a healthy dose of what he calls 'white line fever' set off to conquer one of the most brutal climbs in Italy.
Further back, Harper's former teammate Simon Yates, now at Team Visma-Lease a Bike, was dropping Isaac del Toro in the maglia rosa and second-placed Richard Carapaz on the Finestre. As Yates blew the race wide open, his remaining challengers for pink did little more than look at each other, and the former Vuelta a España winner became Harper's main concern.
'I didn't know too much about what was going on behind me, I had no idea,' Harper tells Guardian Australia while enjoying his post-race recovery on Santorini. 'I just knew that Simon was solo and that he was putting quite a bit of time into del Toro and Carapaz. On the Finestre, my sports director said, 'Simon's about five and a half minutes behind,' and then they said, 'Oh, but he's two minutes in front of the other GC guys'.
'In my head I knew he was riding for pink but that also made me more nervous because I knew he was going to push full gas to the line to take as much time as he could. I've seen him on a good day and I know what he can do.'
Harper and Yates rode together on Jayco AlUla in 2023 and 2024 with the Australian often his teammate's last support in the mountains, including at last year's Tour de France. Rather than feeling overshadowed by the story of Yates banishing his demons from the 2018 Giro when he cracked on much the same stage as Chris Froome took the maglia rosa away from him, Harper is almost as pleased for his friend as for his own breakthrough triumph. The dual celebrations at the end of stage 20 at Sestrière were a reminder that one of the joys of road cycling can be having more than one winner on the same day.
'I was quite nervous once I pulled away alone, especially when the radio said 'Simon's just caught up with Wout [van Aert] and Wout's chasing now',' Harper says. 'They're pretty calm on the radio but you get a sense from the tone in their voice what's happening, you realise how nervous they are. I knew if I blew up, it would be quite easy for Simon to bring back a lot of time on me. So I just paced myself so I'd have a bit left in the tank for the last two or three kilometres.
'Once I got to the last kilometre, they just said, 'You're going to win it, enjoy it, take a moment'. The Finestra is quite a famous climb so it's definitely a nice one to win. I haven't actually watched the race, so I want to go back and watch it just to see what Simon was doing in the GC group as well. He was my teammate and I worked with him a lot, so it'll be nice to sit down and actually watch the stage, soak it in a bit more as well.'
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'I was so happy for Simon and it was nice to see him at the finish line and be able to share that moment together. All of it wrapped up into one nice day. It was like all our bad luck went away at the same time, and it was just the perfect day for both of us.
The victory was Harper's first since winning a stage and eventually the general classification at the Tour of Japan in 2019, a year before he joined the world tour for the first time with Team Jumbo-Visma. With a first taste of personal success for six years, Harper wants to chase more stages while continuing to explore what he is capable of on GC again at this year's Vuelta.
'I didn't even think about it,' he says. 'My manager made a joke that I celebrated twice, once before the finish line and then after I crossed the line. I haven't won a lot so I don't have a lot of practice. It didn't hurt to get two celebrations in the one.'
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