'Every day you're fighting': Harper's wild Giro ride

Chris Harper laughs when asked if he is ready to sideline his title of domestique.

The 30-year-old since joining the WorldTour in 2020 has largely sacrificed his own chances of success to support the title aims of teammates at week-long races and Grand Tours.

However, a stage win at the Giro d’Italia last month may prove to be a turning point in his career.

Harper (Jayco-Alula) was one of the three Australians, including sprinter Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and all-rounder Luke Plapp (Jayco-Alula), to celebrate a victory at the 108^th edition, with Michael Storer (Tudor Pro) placing 10^th on general classification for the second consecutive year.

“Oh it was awesome,” Harper says of the Aussie success. “We were trying to work out - three different guys winning a stage - when the last time that had happened, but none of us had good enough memories.

“I think we’re in a period where we’ve got a lot of Aussie riders who are super talented and quite versatile. We’ve got guys who are really good in the big mountains, we’ve got some of the best sprinters in the world, we’ve just got a really good mix of talent at the moment.”

The climber in recent years has worked for Simon Yates, but at the Giro found himself pitted against the Briton, who won the maglia rosa with rival team Visma-Lease A Bike.   

The Giro unapologetically reserved its toughest mountain days for the third week. Victorian Chris Hamilton (Picnic PostNL), speaking on the last rest day, had admitted the entire peloton was nervous, and Harper was not immune to that. His solo victory on the penultimate day of competition to Sestriere – a ski resort in northwestern Italy – came on the back of the queen stage and at the end of a race he this year approached differently to previous campaigns.

“On paper it was like every hard bit of the Giro was in that last week, there wasn’t any let-up,” Harper says.

“And as well the two days back-to-back, the Friday was a super hard [queen] stage, it was a bit shorter but you pretty much either were going downhill or uphill, and long, hard, steep climbs. I actually thought on paper that the Saturday stage [to Sestriere] was not easy, obviously, but a lot easier. You had those big, long valleys where if you’re not riding the front you’re saving a lot of energy, so I think mentally it was a bit easier than the day before. But still when you look at doing a 200km stage with over 4000m of climbing it definitely makes you nervous.”

Harper was at the front as part of a 31-man breakaway that led up the ominous Colle delle Finestre climb – the group thereafter slowly whittling down to just him, as Yates chased behind to finish the stage third and successfully take the pink leader’s jersey from Isaac del Toro (UAE Emirates-XRG).

The win was a relief for Harper not just because he knew what Yates, who he still trains with in Andorra, was capable of, but also because of his changed outlook.

Yates’ departure and an ongoing restructure at Jayco-Alula partly contributed to Harper’s increased freedom, compared to previous years, at the first Grand Tour of the season. He entered with the ambition of finishing top 10 on general classification and that translated to having to be consistently on, both physically and mentally.

“I think the big difference is there’s no days where you get to take it easy to the finish line when you’re going for GC,” Harper says. “Even those sprint stages, you’re always fighting to the finish to not lose time.

“We had a couple of days early on in the race where we’re on these finishing circuits and it’s quite technical and it just ends up being a super hard finish for someone like me. I’m not very explosive, and you’re going around corners and sprinting out of them full gas. Whereas when I was working for Simon, I’d get to these circuits and I’d sit up and cruise into the finish line and feel better once we got to the mountains for it. This year, I really noticed every day you’re sort of fighting for something.

“Same with the TT days. In the past I’d just do a good warm-up and then go out and use the TT day almost as a bit of activation to switch back everything on for the upcoming stages. Whereas at the Giro it was all the TT days were full-gas to get the best possible result.”

Harper was forced to reassess his general classification goals after becoming sick in the second week of the Giro, switching his focus to stage wins instead. When he roared across the finish line in Sestriere, the overwhelming emotion was not happiness or excitement rather relief from a separate race that had played out in his mind.

“It had been mentally and physically pretty challenging. I was feeling good in the first week and maybe tactically over-raced a little bit early on, but I felt like I had good legs, and I was going to be competitive,” Harper says.

“And then when I got sick in the second week, I almost just felt like I was in survival mode, it was like I had lost the ability to race with the better guys, so it was quite frustrating.

“In a couple of days, I went from feeling like I could be competitive with good climbers to all of a sudden I’m just trying to tick-off stages. It was relief that I was able to get back to where I was at the start of the race, turn it all around and finish on a positive note.”

Harper admits his morale going into stage 20 wasn’t high. He’d made the break the day prior but felt he didn’t have the legs. However, perseverance and the emotional support of family, friends, and Jayco-Alula sports director David McPartland ultimately paid off.

“I’ve got a pretty nice support network. If I’m having a rough moment they’re the people I’ll turn to, and have a chat to, and say I’m not feeling good. They’re always positive, can sort of break you out of that negative thought process of, ‘I’m no good anymore, I’m just surviving’, sort of thing,” Harper says.  

“I definitely rely on all them heavily, and the same with the directors we had in the race. I was speaking to Macca [McPartland] quite a lot and he was always super positive.”

On stage 20 it all came together, and Harper celebrated his career first individual Grand Tour stage victory.

“I was thinking I just need to get this one done, and get this race done, but once I started racing, I actually felt quite good, and ended up in a good break. Then you sort of stop thinking about everything else and just focus on doing as well as you can,” he says.

Harper is unsure what his next race will be. He has outlined a desire to line-up at the Vuelta a Espana later this year, alongside teammate Ben O’Connor, who is set to start the Tour de France next month.

Winning can become addictive, especially once you’ve had a taste of it as Harper now has, proving himself on one of the most brutal days of one of cycling’s most unforgiving races.

Harper won’t sideline his position description of domestique just yet – that’s not synonymous with who he is or how his team operates. But he’s open to adding to it.

“That’s the team’s decision at the end of the day. We’ve got Ben O’Connor, who is also a very accomplished stage race and Grand Tour rider, but I think the difference with us at Jayco compared to maybe like a UAE or a Visma is we don’t necessarily go to stage races or Grand Tours with, ‘This is the plan and the only plan’,” Harper says.

“It’s awesome to have a nice result but until I can get to a race and back up and do it again, I wouldn’t like to say.

“I’ll just try and let my legs do the talking.”