Chapter 400 - 197: Riding Professional Road Cycling onto the CCTV Live Channel (Part 2)

Most of them had watched this year’s Giro d’Italia, so they knew that Narváez was the only rider to beat Pogačar in a finish-line sprint and take the pink jersey from him for a day.

His explosive power, coupled with his versatility as an all-arounder, would undoubtedly give Huang Chong wings if he could act as his key domestique and lead-out man.

The Red Bull Bora Team had been lacking this type of rider all year. During the Spring Classics, Huang Chong had to single-handedly fight for every result the team achieved.

Now that he had a good partner—and with rumors that the UAE Team had also wanted to sign Narváez, only to be beaten to the punch by the Red Bull Bora Team—the fans were naturally ecstatic.

In fact, as soon as the news broke, people online were already looking forward to next spring, anticipating Huang Chong returning to the Liège Race with Narváez to get his revenge on cycling’s number one rider, Pogačar.

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「August 3rd.」

Zheng Qinwen had already eliminated Swiatek and was set to compete against the Croatian player, Vekic, for the Olympic women’s singles gold medal today.

However, Huang Chong would miss this match, which was destined to make Olympic history for China.

Because today, he too had to represent his country and compete in his only event at the Olympics: the Men’s Road Race.

A total of 90 riders would be participating in this race.

Among them, five countries had four entry spots each:

The host nation, France.

The world’s number one road cycling nation, Belgium.

Slovenia, which had Pogačar, though he himself was not participating.

Denmark, which had Vingegaard, who was also not participating.

And the British Team.

As for the countries with three entry spots, there were also five of them:

The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, the United States, and Australia.

Then there were countries like China, with two entry spots.

Finally, there were countries with only one entry spot, such as Ecuador and Kazakhstan.

Undoubtedly, the gold medal favorites for the Paris Olympic Games Road Race were predicted based on the course profile.

Although on the surface, the French Team had meticulously designed this 272.1 km course with 2,825 meters of total elevation gain and 13 short climbs—an Ardennes Classics-style route tailored to their own Classics rider, Alaphilippe—the field was simply packed with too many specialists in this type of race.

The biggest favorite to win was, without a doubt, the number one Classics rider from the Netherlands: Mathieu van der Poel.

And right behind van der Poel was the Belgian Classics star and one of the two great ’Vans,’ Van Aert.

As for the riders ranked third and fourth in terms of winning odds, they were naturally Evenepoel and Huang Chong, who had placed fourth and second overall in the Tour de France, respectively.

As for why Evenepoel’s Olympic odds were better than Huang Chong’s, it was, of course, because his three teammates were all top-tier riders.

Road cycling is a team sport, after all, and the lineup Belgium fielded was the strongest of any nation.

The two domestiques were Benut from the Visma Team and Stuyven from the Trek Team.

Huang Chong had witnessed Benut’s strength in the Classics firsthand.

For example, during Crossing Flanders, after Van Aert had to withdraw due to injury, Benut promptly adjusted tactics to support Jorgenson. He didn’t just pull for the rest of the race; he also managed a great finish for himself.

Stuyven, without a doubt, was the domestique for the flat sections, responsible for pulling at the front and handling lead-outs in the early stages.

And besides Belgium’s strong lineup, the teams sent by France and Denmark were also formidable.

France had Alaphilippe, Laporte, Vauquelin, and Madouas.

All four were Classics and breakaway-type riders.

Denmark, meanwhile, sent the two co-leaders from the Trek Team—the sprinter Pedersen and the lead climber Skjelmose—supported by two domestiques: Bjerg from the UAE Team and Michael

Beyond them, there was Tranic from Slovenia.

Watter from Hungary.

Toms Skujiņš from Latvia.

Stefan King and Hirschi from Switzerland.

Jorgenson and McNulty from the United States.

Ben Healy from Ireland.

Pidcock from the United Kingdom.

Buitrago and Martínez (Huang Chong’s teammate and second overall in this year’s Giro d’Italia) from Colombia.

Ayuso from Spain.

Ben O’Connor from Australia.

Narváez from Ecuador.

Lutsenko from Kazakhstan.

Derrick Gee from Canada.

And Bettiol from Italy, among others—in reality, they all had a shot at the gold medal.

In short, the Olympic Road Race is a complete free-for-all within the world of cycling.

Although on paper, some powerhouse nations had lineups that were clearly a tier above the rest.

But since these riders came from different trade teams, it was hard to predict how well they would actually coordinate.

Especially Belgium.

They might be strong on paper, but their northern and southern riders didn’t even speak the same language. Whether they could truly unite and pull together as one was anyone’s guess.

And while van der Poel’s individual strength was beyond doubt, his two teammates weren’t strong enough; only Van Baarle was barely passable.

As for Huang Chong, although European bookmakers ranked him fourth in the gold medal odds, this was based entirely on his second-place overall finish at the Tour de France and his victories at Crossing Flanders and Flèche Wallonne. He himself wasn’t entirely confident about that ranking.

’After all, while the Paris Olympic Games course was the longest in Olympic history, the 13 officially categorized climbs were just not difficult enough.’

’If it came down to a one-on-one with van der Poel, there was no way he could drop him on such short, shallow climbs.’

’On the contrary, with van der Poel’s explosive power, on a cobbled section like the one on Montmartre, he would be the one getting instantly dropped!’

Of course, the Tour de France had only just ended, so the recovery of these bigger riders after a three-week Grand Tour was still a major question mark.

After all, the intensity of the Tour de France was no joke. Just to finish the mountain stages inside the time cut, they had to expend far more energy than a lightweight climber like Huang Chong, especially with the insane amount of climbing in the final week.

’So, how exactly van der Poel, Van Aert, and the others would perform, and whether his own presence would alter the outcome from his past life—these were questions Huang Chong could only answer by racing against them.’

’Whether the historical result would change or repeat itself was completely unpredictable.’

’After the Tour de France, Huang Chong had come to understand one thing: as the one who upset the balance and broke the rules, he himself had become the single greatest variable in the World Tour histories of two separate worlds.’

But regardless of the outcome, his participation in this race was definitely a major event back in China.

Not only would CCTV Sports be broadcasting the race live, but they had also assigned dedicated commentators to analyze and promote the sport of road cycling.

This was undoubtedly thanks to Huang Chong’s personal achievements.

If he hadn’t achieved so much success on the World Tour circuit, CCTV would rarely, if ever, broadcast road cycling races.

They typically only broadcasted domestic races.

You could say that Huang Chong had, for the time being, ridden the sport of professional road cycling right onto CCTV’s live broadcast schedule.

As for the future, whether CCTV Sports would proactively broadcast World Tour events like the three Grand Tours and the five Monuments would depend on whether he could achieve something significant at the Olympics.

But in any case, as long as the Olympic Road Race was being broadcast live on CCTV Sports, plenty of people in the country would be watching.

After all, in the hearts of the Chinese people, an Olympic champion was the most prestigious and outstanding image of an athlete.

And it didn’t matter what the sport was; as long as it brought glory to the nation, it was a good sport!

As for the actual road cycling fans, they were more than satisfied just to be able to watch Huang Chong compete for a gold medal against Europe’s top riders on CCTV Sports.

After all, watching the CCTV broadcast was completely free.

As the time in France reached 11:10 AM, the starting gun fired. Huang Chong, who had long been waiting at the Trocadero Square in Paris, set off with the main peloton. The race that had the potential to bring the sport into millions of homes across China had finally begun.

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