Free Web NovelChapter 116: Chapter 99: First Time Representing the Nation, yet Facing a World Tour Powerhouse
This was the first time Huang Chong had ever gone abroad in his two lives combined.
Born in the year 2000, a member of the post-millennial generation, he had seen China develop at a breathtaking pace.
With the internet being so advanced, his generation rarely yearned for the outside world.
And after actually arriving in Thailand, he was here with the National Team, and the budget for the road cycling program was extremely limited. This was by no means a world tour.
As for spending his own money to see ladyboys or anything of the sort, that was also impossible; the schedule was far too tight.
He arrived in Rayong Province on June 11th, and by the time he was settled in, it was already evening.
On the 12th, he was already fully immersed in training, because the men’s road race was on the 13th.
As the Asian Road Cycling Championships were being held the year before an Olympic year, the men’s and women’s road races each offered two direct Olympic qualification spots for the top two finishers.
At the same time, the other 18 Asian countries participating in these Asian Championships also needed to use this race to determine their rosters for the Hangcheng Asian Games at the end of the year.
Therefore, these Asian Championships were a gathering of Asia’s top experts, with nearly every country sending their strongest cyclists.
And for any Asian country, the biggest rival for everyone was, without a doubt, the Kazakhstan National Team.
This was because the Astana Team, one of the 18 World Tour Teams, was sponsored by a Kazakh state-owned enterprise and named after their nation’s Capital city.
"Huang Chong, I’ve compiled a list of the cyclists you need to pay special attention to this time. Take a look."
After arriving at their hotel in Rayong, Thailand, Chen Junyi immediately brought Huang Chong the list of rivals and continued:
"I don’t need to say much about Kazakhstan; their entire team is stacked with experts.
Among the national team members they sent this time, the one widely recognized as Asia’s strongest cyclist, Lutsenko, isn’t even here.
But they still have an active cyclist from the Astana World Tour Team, a man named Fedorov Yevgeniy.
This cyclist is the same age as you, also born in 2000, just a few months older.
But he was last year’s U23 World Champion, wears the Rainbow Jersey for his category, and is incredibly strong.
Besides the Kazakh cyclists, the ones you should be most wary of are Arashiro Yukiya and Koishi Yuma from the Japanese Team.
Although the former is already 39 years old, he has previously competed in three Olympic Games and is extremely experienced.
As the saying goes, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse. An average cyclist is no match for a veteran like him, so you must constantly keep an eye on the Japanese Team’s movements."
After seeing the list, Huang Chong nodded with a serious expression and replied:
"Okay, I understand."
He had two main objectives for this competition.
The primary objective was, of course, to go all out for a top-two finish in the men’s road race and see if he could secure a direct Olympic qualification spot for the country.
The secondary objective, personally requested by Coach Han, was that even if he didn’t get top two, he had to at least beat Japan and South Korea.
To ensure he could compete in peak condition, Coach Han had him sit out the men’s individual time trial (ITT) and the mixed team time trial, both held before the road race.
The head coach’s intention was to prevent him from expending unnecessary energy before the main event.
Before the men’s road race began, the ITT was held.
The time trial was 46 km long, mostly on flat roads, but there would be severe crosswinds during the race.
In his spare time from training, Huang Chong naturally went with the team to watch Xue Ming, the cyclist from the Tianjin Team responsible for this event, and to cheer on his teammate.
For the ITT event, apart from Kazakhstan which had two entry spots, every other country only had one.
Besides Huang Chong, Xue Ming had the strongest time trial ability.
Having him participate in a major competition like this to gain experience was undoubtedly the best arrangement from Coach Han.
However, after watching the whole race, Huang Chong realized that while Xue Ming was a top-tier TT rider in China, he was still a bit lacking when compared to the rest of Asia.
The result was, unsurprisingly, a landslide victory for Kazakhstan’s Fedorov Yevgeniy, who won the ITT championship with an average speed of 51.6 km/h.
He was the only rider in the entire field to average over 50 km/h.
His total time was 53 minutes and 28 seconds, a full 1 minute and 57 seconds ahead of the second-place rider from the Taiwan Team.
Xue Ming finished in 8th place overall, 4 minutes and 35 seconds behind the winner, with an average speed of 47.5 km/h.
To achieve an average speed of over 50 km/h in a 46 km ITT, especially with significant crosswinds, was indeed something no ordinary cyclist could do.
When Huang Chong saw the final results sheet, he was actually calculating in his head, ’If I went all out right now, could I compete with the champion?’
This Fedorov Yevgeniy could easily crush the competition at the Asian Championships, but at the World Tour Level, he was really just getting started.
Otherwise, the Astana Team wouldn’t have seen its points drop into the relegation zone in 2023 and 2024, even with a core of their own national riders.
If it weren’t for the Chinese bike manufacturer Xidesheng providing bikes and capital investment in 2025, prompting the team to decisively adjust its strategy, rebuild its roster around a core of Italian riders, and then go on a point-scoring frenzy on the World Tour, Astana would have been guaranteed to be relegated in 2026 and would have become a Pro Level team.
Of course, these were all things that would happen in the future and Huang Chong’s personal speculations, so there was no need to dwell on them.
In any case, after the ITT, he had witnessed the strength of some of the top riders and had a better sense of what he was up against.
If he wanted to get a top-two finish, staying with the Kazakh riders for the entire race was a must.
He had also test-ridden the course for the Asian Championships men’s road race today. Although he hadn’t gone all out, he had at least familiarized himself with the overall conditions of the route.
The entire course was 156 km, with the most difficult section concentrated in the middle, between the 60 km and 100 km marks, which was almost entirely rolling hills.
The final set of short climbs, in particular, was located around the 100 km mark.
It was a short, steep climb that, while only 700 meters long, had a gradient as high as 11.5%.
And right after cresting this short hill, there were another four or five consecutive short climbs, each several tens of meters long.
This combination would undoubtedly test the riders’ anaerobic recovery abilities.
After seeing the race’s elevation profile and riding it himself, Huang Chong didn’t even need the coach to lay out a strategy. He could basically guess that after 100 km of rolling terrain and attacks, this final set of climbs would be where the race was ultimately decided.
Because after this climbing section, which featured the 11.5% short, steep hill, the remaining forty-plus kilometers were almost all downhill or completely flat.
Starting from the last 20 km, the course to the finish line was all flat roads, which was very advantageous for sprinters.
You could say that, on the whole, this course was a perfect stage for a classics rider.
Because classics riders can withstand a certain degree of short climbs without getting easily dropped, and they also possess powerful explosive strength.
In terms of maximum power output, they might not be able to match pure flat-road sprinters, and in high-mountain stages, they are no match for GC Cyclists and Climbers.
But it’s precisely this kind of classics terrain, composed of numerous short climbs, sometimes with dirt or cobblestone roads, that is most suitable for them.
The most typical and outstanding example of a classics rider is van der Poel.
His maximum sprint might not beat his teammate Philipsen, or other teams’ sprinters like Merlier, Milan, or Pedersen, but he can outsprint the most powerful GC Cyclist, Pogačar.
That’s why in races like Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix, which only have light climbs, even someone as strong as Pogačar can do nothing against him and has to accept defeat.
...
「June 13th.」
The men’s road race was scheduled to start at 10:00 AM sharp.
A total of 19 national teams had registered, with 5 cyclists per team, making for 95 riders in total.
Prior to this, the women’s road race had already concluded. National Team member Sun Jiajun had successfully taken second place, securing a direct qualification spot for the women’s event at next year’s Paris Olympic Games.
The pressure was now naturally on the men’s team.
Huang Chong stood in line with his teammates.
This was his first time participating in an official race wearing the National Team kit.
The top was the main red color of the national flag, while the bottom was black.
The country’s name was printed in English on the thigh area.
Although this race was extremely important, back home, aside from the top brass in the road cycling program, it had virtually no attention from the general public.
You couldn’t even find a live broadcast source in the country; it was almost completely ignored.
But Huang Chong knew what it meant to have come this far, to be standing right under the starting arch at this very moment.
Perhaps his countrymen hadn’t yet turned their attention to the battlefield where they stood, but as long as he could achieve a good result in the race, like winning an Olympic qualification spot, then when the Olympics began, people back home would definitely be watching the road cycling events.
After all, the Olympics were considered the most important sporting event in the country.
With the sound of a starting gun, the race began.
Unlike in domestic leagues or even the World Tour, Kazakhstan didn’t seem to regard the other Asian countries at all.
They immediately formed a line at the front of the peloton, their five riders taking turns pulling, and began to ramp up the speed, stretching out the main group.
This was a clear statement to the other countries, spoken through actions:
’We’re just going to drop you all with our raw power!’
As for tactics, they were completely irrelevant.
’Anyone here who wants to compete for the championship better try to keep up with us first—’
Huang Chong’s five-man team formed a line and gave chase.
Because an Olympic qualification spot was on the line, everyone, despite being from different professional teams and provinces, could still unite as one to face a common foe—
This was especially true for Brother Xiaoma, who was on the same pro team as Huang Chong. Knowing full well that this classics-style course didn’t suit him, he immediately took on the job of fetching water for his teammates.
This was unlike Du Zhihao and others from the Taiwan Team, who were all thinking about winning a Paris Olympic Games spot for themselves. They were each fighting their own battles, outwardly cooperative but inwardly divided during the race.
But no matter how exquisite the coordination or how strong the team spirit, when facing a team in a league of its own like Kazakhstan, the other Asian nations ultimately seemed outmatched.
This was especially true when Kazakhstan started putting in repeated attacks from the 50 km mark to the 65 km mark—a section of gradual inclines and several short, steep climbs—at an average speed of nearly 46 km/h. Many of the weaker riders from other Asian countries immediately started to get shelled, creating gaps and getting dropped.
For now, Huang Chong’s five-man group was still tightly clustered together, following right behind the Kazakh riders.
But after passing the 60 km mark, they all knew that the hardest part of the entire course had only just begun.
Could they still hang on to Kazakhstan for the next 40 km?
That was something no one was sure of.
