The West Australian rider proved again that he's one of the strongest riders at the Spanish Grand Tour, making the early break then riding away from the large group with seeming ease on the Altu de la Cobertoria. Storer made his move with just over 70 kilometres left to the finish line atop the Altu d'el Gaimoniteiru, immediately getting a good gap over his erstwhile breakaway companions, forging off the front solo.
Storer's lead back to the peloton grew as well, with the Australian adding a few minutes to his lead over the Bahrain Victorious-led main bunch on the climb and with an adept descent on technical, winding terrain. However, when he hit the valley floor, a concerted effort from Movistar began to drag his lead back down, it had grown to a maximum of six minutes.
Those flat kilometres were to be the bane of Storer's day in the saddle, he largely maintained his now-two minute lead on the penultimate climb of the Altu la Sega o del Cordal and hit the base of the imposing final ascent with two minutes on the pursuing peloton, too little time to the climbing favourites on a beast of a climb like the Altu d'el Gaimoniteiru.
Storer battled on bravely but was eventually by lone attacker David de la Cruz (UAE Team Emirates) before being swamped by the remnants of the peloton, eventually finishing the stage in 37th, conserving energy once he knew he wasn't in the fight for a top place.
The 24-year-old had been in the move with a dual goal, to protect the position of mountains jersey holder and teammate Romain Bardet (Team DSM), while also adding to his own points tally. With the Frenchman not in the move, Storer was able to win atop each of the climbs before the finale to push himself into the lead of the classification.
"I’m happy I got in the move in the first place with a lot of guys," said Storer after the stage. "Unfortunately, the peloton didn’t give us a lot of time, we only had four minutes on the third-last climb. So we knew we needed to push the pace.
"I was hoping some other people would come with me so I’d have some company on that valley road but no one reacted when I pushed the pace so I was by myself. I was happy I could get over that second last climb by myself but I knew coming into that last climb that I needed to have more than two minutes, there are limits to what’s possible to hold out front.
"A lot of teams seemed to be interested in chasing me down, I was a bit unlucky that they didn’t give me the advantage I needed heading into that last climb."
Storer was a pale ghost in the mist atop the foggy podium of Altu d'el Gaimoniteiru, stepping up to claim the polka dot jersey, which he now holds by five points over teammate Bardet.
"I’m happy to keep the jersey in DSM, since I was there, it was worth picking up the points to keep the jersey," said Storer. "It doesn’t matter who it’s with, as a team we want to win the jersey, so it’s better if two of us have lots of points."
La Vuelta a España continues tonight with Stage 19, one that looks tailor-made for the breakaway with early climbs before and undulating run to the finish. Watch the action from 2300 AEST tonight on SBS VICELAND and SBS OnDemand, with the coverage starting slightly earlier on the SKODA Tour Tracker at 2250 AEST.
