Chapter 298 - 168: After Today, Everyone Will See You in a New Light

Of course, he couldn’t possibly be unaware of this rider from the Bora Team, a man who had been tearing through the World Tour and racking up victory after victory.

In fact, when Huang Chong snatched the overall championship at the UAE Tour—a race on UAE Team’s home turf and hosted by their own sponsors—Pogačar had taken notice of him immediately.

However, their race schedules had never overlapped before, so they had never competed on the same stage. The Liège Race was the first time, so Pogačar hadn’t had a chance to experience Huang Chong’s abilities up close.

But now, after the Stokkeu Mountain climb, he had a clear understanding of Huang Chong’s capabilities. At the same time, an involuntary sense of threat crept into his mind.

The racing instincts of a top-tier cyclist are exceptionally sharp.

They can certainly sense when a rider’s ability comes close to their own.

Overall, Pogačar had been very confident in himself before the start of a race like Liège, which had so many climbs.

Although van der Poel could consistently get the better of him at Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix, in races like the Liège and Lombardy, van der Poel had virtually no chance as long as Pogačar himself didn’t crash or have an accident.

But now, in Pogačar’s own view, his biggest rival on this course had probably shifted from an old foe to a new target.

And just as they cleared Stokkeu Mountain, a voice came through on Pogačar’s radio earpiece from the UAE Team director:

"Tadej, you need to pay special attention to the Chinese rider from Bora Team: Huang Chong.

His performance on that last climb was outstanding.

Furthermore, based on his riding form, it’s clear he barely expended any energy in the previous race, the Flèche Wallonne.

We’ve also carefully studied his race footage. His style is remarkably similar to yours—not only does he have powerful and consistent climbing ability, but he also possesses a short-range Sprinting Burst.

Our tactical plan remains unchanged.

But if he manages to stick with your pace, you might need to slightly increase your power output beyond what we planned for pre-race."

Pogačar pressed a hand to his earpiece and replied curtly:

"Got it."

The race continued. After the lead group crested the Stokkeu Mountain climb, there were still six difficult climbs remaining.

But just about three kilometers later, with 76.4 km left in the race, the front of the race immediately hit the Côte de la Haute Levée.

Such a compact series of rolling climbs truly tested the riders’ ability to recover between efforts.

Especially at this stage of the race, if any rider cracked and got dropped from the lead group, it would be nearly impossible to catch up again, even with a teammate pacing them.

The Côte de la Haute Levée was 2.2 km long with a total elevation gain of 465 meters, an average gradient of 7.5%, and a maximum gradient of 13% for about 500 meters right at the start.

For these two difficult, back-to-back climbs, UAE Team had their domestique, Novak, do all the pacemaking at the front to whittle down the group of riders from other teams.

As expected, another group of riders was dropped from the lead group.

Huang Chong glanced at the lead group. While he felt he was still a good distance from blowing up, his teammate Vlasov was the first to crack.

He could no longer pace for Huang Chong and had even fallen to the back of the group, hanging on only by gritting his teeth to avoid being dropped completely.

The good news was that after the Côte de la Haute Levée, there was a full 12 km of long descents until the fifth climb, the Rozier Pass, at the 64.3 km mark. This would finally allow Vlasov to catch his breath.

The bad news, however, was that van der Poel, Pidcock, and the others who had been frantically chasing from the second group used this 12 km descent to speed up and successfully catch them, merging the groups.

Of course, for Huang Chong, the merging of the second group wasn’t all bad news.

Because in the newly formed group, he also spotted his teammate, Sindel, who had also been caught behind the earlier incident.

And with the arrival of van der Poel and the others, the race for the win suddenly became more complicated.

The lead group, which had been whittled down to just over 20 riders by the UAE domestiques, suddenly swelled back to forty or fifty riders.

But without a doubt, this group now comprised all the main contenders for the overall victory.

At this point, anyone who hadn’t caught up could be considered officially out of the running for the win at this year’s Liège Race.

"Huang, I’ll take over the pulling for you for the next stretch!"

After successfully finding Huang Chong in the pack, Sindel immediately took over Vlasov’s duties.

Hearing this, Huang Chong couldn’t help but feel a surge of emotion.

’In his previous races, no matter which domestiques Aldag assigned to him, even Adrià, they usually couldn’t keep up once the race entered the final fifty or sixty kilometers.

He often had to resort to drafting off other teams.

But trying to draft off a World Tour Team in a key position is incredibly difficult.

These Professional Cyclists would constantly change their formation to prevent other riders from tailing them.

In short, racing without top-tier domestiques really increases the difficulty of contending for the win.

For a long time after, the team leader would have to rely solely on his own individual strength to chase. A comeback was impossible unless that leader was on a completely different level than everyone else.

But today, racing alongside the team’s true main roster, he finally felt the reassuring sense of being protected by teammates throughout the race.’