Free Web NovelChapter 79: Chapter 79: Tactics Can Be Different, But There Is Only One Champion
After the team time trial, the mood among the Zhejiang Team cyclists was clearly somber as they ate dinner that evening.
The reason was obvious: if not for Huang Chong’s exceptional individual strength, which saw him pulling them against a headwind for nearly 50 kilometers, the other five members’ abilities would have landed them in dead last place among the ten competing teams.
After the day’s grueling race, they had finally come to a stark realization: without Huang Chong as their fig leaf, their skills were, on a national level, utterly pathetic.
Seeing everyone’s silence at the dinner table, Xie Kun didn’t know what to say.
In truth, having a cyclist on the team whose abilities so vastly outstripped the others was a mixed blessing for him as the head coach.
The upside was that with Huang Chong as his safety net, he had already secured a gold medal. His performance record had exceeded the bureau’s requirements, and he had already received the championship prize money.
The downside was that arranging tactics and strategies was incredibly difficult.
Huang Chong and the other five were on completely different levels, making it almost impossible to coordinate any real strategy. freēwebnovel.com
Xie Kun had watched Huang Chong’s performance all day. He had truly sacrificed his own interests for the team, single-handedly battling the harsh winds and carrying the entire squad on his back.
Without his grit and effort, they wouldn’t have managed to stay ahead of the last-place team in the TTT overall standings.
After all, the gap between them and the team in last place was only a few seconds—a razor-thin margin.
Fortunately, the championships were already halfway through. For the senior men’s category, only one event remained: tomorrow’s mass start road race, and only Huang Chong and Wang Bao were slated to compete.
The other four riders from the main squad were already done with the competition, so he no longer had to rack his brain trying to balance tactics for the whole team.
So after dinner, Xie Kun called Huang Chong and Wang Bao together to go over their strategy.
"For tomorrow’s road race, Wang Bao, your job is to support Huang Chong. Try to do as many pulls for him as you can in the peloton. Don’t worry about your own results."
"Today’s defeat wasn’t any single rider’s fault. The reality is that our team’s overall strength just doesn’t measure up to the riders from other provinces."
"On top of that, the six of you have had very little time to train together, so you’re not used to coordinating with one another. Finishing second-to-last was more or less inevitable."
"Once you’ve had more time to train together and have more races under your belt, your skills will naturally improve. These things take time."
Xie Kun’s words of comfort were clearly directed at Wang Bao. He was worried that today’s poor TTT result would shake the young rider’s confidence and affect his performance tomorrow.
But Wang Bao was actually fine. As a newcomer to the main squad, how could he be as concerned with results and public image as Chen Guangyi and the others?
Besides, he was already quite satisfied with averaging 45 km/h over a hundred kilometers, even if he had teammates breaking the wind for him the entire way and spent very little time pulling at the front himself.
This was valuable big-race experience. He was still young; if he could average 45 km/h with his teammates’ help today, then with hard work, he could surely reach that speed on his own in the future. That would put his skill level very close to the top riders from other provincial teams.
He said frankly,
"Coach, I’m fine. Tomorrow, I’ll do as you say and be a good domestique for Huang Chong."
"I’m not expecting much for my own overall result this time. I’m mainly here to gain experience and learn from the best riders in the country."
"I just hope that while I’m pulling for Huang Chong, I can manage to finish the race without getting lapped and pulled."
Hearing Wang Bao say this, Xie Kun immediately felt relieved.
He had been worried the young man might be too proud, focused on his own results, and would resent being assigned the role of a domestique.
That kind of attitude would lead a rider to completely ignore his tactical instructions.
But now, hearing Wang Bao’s words, he realized he had been worrying for nothing.
’The kid has a very mature mindset.’
But in reality, Wang Bao’s willingness to be Huang Chong’s domestique stemmed from being completely won over by his strength.
After all, since the provincial games, they had competed against each other three times, and each time, he had been utterly crushed. What was the point of fighting for personal pride now?
But if Xie Kun had asked him to be a domestique for Chen Guangyi and the others, he definitely would not have agreed.
His pride was certainly still intact. When riders were of similar strength, who would willingly volunteer to be the workhorse?
The strategy Xie Kun laid out for Huang Chong was far more detailed, though the core of it was much the same as what they had discussed before the championships began.
"Huang Chong, tomorrow you must mark the Longjiang Team’s riders closely. Don’t let any of them open up a gap on you."
"The road race will be over four hours long, so the overall pace won’t be excessively high. Let Wang Bao pull for you for the first few laps."
"If Wang Bao gets dropped by the peloton, you have to sit on the Longjiang Team’s wheels. Even if it means leeching their draft, you cannot get dropped. At the same time, you must conserve as much energy as possible. Don’t take any pulls in their rotation."
"I know that sitting on someone’s wheel and leeching their draft isn’t pretty and often draws criticism, but in a race, all that matters is who wins in the end."
"It’s a legitimate tactic in road cycling. As long as you’re not breaking any rules, there’s no reason to hesitate."
"When the race gets down to the last two laps, or even the final lap, assess how you’re feeling and whether you have the energy for a solo breakaway."
"If you do, look for an opportunity and launch an attack."
"If not, just stay sheltered until the very end and contest the sprint at the finish line."
"In short, be especially vigilant in the last 20 to 30 kilometers. That’s the ideal range for a solo breakaway to succeed."
"Of course, in the early laps, you and Wang Bao both need to stay alert during the surges."
"In a flat circuit race like this, riders won’t maintain a steady pace. Teams will inevitably launch repeated attacks at different tempos to disrupt their rivals’ rhythm and wear them down."
"Our tactic isn’t that complicated. The core idea is to react to whatever they do."
"In summary, adapt to their changes in pace and stick to their wheels. Don’t launch your own attacks and burn too much energy. Conserving energy in the peloton is an excellent tactic in itself."
Huang Chong didn’t really have anything to say about the passive strategy Xie Kun had laid out.
It wasn’t that the strategy was wrong. In fact, it was quite sound. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
The theory was perfectly aligned with the tactics of the World Tour Team, the Jumbo Team.
He even suspected Xie Kun had just picked it up from watching Jumbo and was applying it now.
For example, Jumbo’s leader, Vingegaard, could sit on Pogačar’s wheel for the entire Tour de France without ever taking a pull. And in the one-day classics, Van Aert could do the same to van der Poel, never taking a turn at the front. They were arguably two of the best wheel-suckers in the sport.
But on the other hand, to say the tactic was right... deep down, Huang Chong found it hard to accept.
’Winning a race with my kind of strength by never attacking, just by playing it safe?’
’For someone who aspired to be a GC Cyclist, that philosophy felt completely wrong.’
’Vingegaard doesn’t attack because he lacks a short, explosive Sprinting Burst. He has to rely on long climbs to keep up with Pogačar.’
’In fact, he often can’t even follow the first few pedal strokes of Pogačar’s initial attack. He has to rely on his incredible anaerobic endurance on long climbs to gradually claw his way back.’
’But if Pogačar ever truly gets away, Vingegaard can only watch helplessly—a point made especially clear in the 2024 Tour de France.’
’So, if he didn’t learn to take the initiative and attack in races, to seize control for himself, then even with his system, the timeline for him to challenge someone like Pogačar would be stretched out indefinitely. That wasn’t an outcome he wanted.’
Of course, it was too early to be thinking about all that. For now, he could just play along with Xie Kun’s plan.
When the race actually started tomorrow, he could simply adapt to the ever-changing situation on the course based on how he felt.
There were no team radios in the road race. So even if he didn’t follow Xie Kun’s strategy, the coach couldn’t say anything about it during the race.
So on the surface, Huang Chong simply nodded without any further argument, replying,
"I understand, Coach!"
...
「On another floor of the hotel, in the Longjiang Team’s room.」
Their coach, naturally, was also laying out a strategy for his riders.
But compared to Xie Kun’s passive strategy, their plan was simple, direct, and far more aggressive.
Attack, and then attack some more.
After all, as the team that had won every single event so far, dropping only one gold medal, their strength was truly in a league of its own.
In fact, if you took Huang Chong out of the equation, the only team and rider who posed a real threat to them were the Hong Kong Team and Liu Yunyou.
The rest of the field wasn’t even worth devising a specific strategy for.
They just had to put their riders on the course, have them coordinate and rotate as they did in training, and their raw power alone would be enough to crush all their opponents.
Such was the confidence that came from having an insurmountable advantage in strength.
「On the third day of competition,」 as Huang Chong and Wang Bao rode their road bikes to the starting arch, they were surprised to find that the Longjiang Team had actually entered three riders for the road race.
’Was this their original plan, to try and sweep the podium? Or did they add an extra rider specifically to target me because I took the ITT championship from them?’
It was a question Huang Chong would never know the answer to.
But he didn’t need to.
Because if he wanted to win, it didn’t matter if they sent three riders or six; he would have to beat them all.
Tactics could vary, but there was only ever one champion.
The strongest rider.
