Chapter 158: Chapter 118: The Strength of the Asian King of Cycling Is No Joke
While Coach Han was strategizing with Huang Chong for the ITT, the head coach of the Kazakhstan National Team was giving his own star rider, Lutsenko, a briefing on the Chinese cyclist:
"Alexey, that Chinese rider, Huang Chong, is the one who snatched victory from Yevgeniy right at the finish line in the Asian Championships back in June.
His race schedule is the same as yours this time. The China Team has him down for two events as well.
You need to be careful. His performance this year has been absolutely formidable.
I just found out that back in July, while you were at the Tour de France, he won the general classification of a UCI Pro Level stage race: the Tour of Qinghai Lake.
He’s around the same age as Yevgeniy, only six months his junior, but his overall strength is certainly no less than Yevgeniy’s.
I suspect that after the Asian Games, the China National Team will also send him to the final World Tour race in China: the Tour of Guangxi.
If he performs at the same level as he did in the Asian Championships, he could get noticed by a World Tour Team.
Which means our biggest rival in this race isn’t the Japanese Team or the Mongolian Team, like it used to be. It’s the China Team."
As a seasoned veteran and the reigning Asian King of Cycling, Alexey Lutsenko’s achievements on the World Tour were nothing short of brilliant.
He won Stage 5 of the Vuelta a España back in 2017.
In 2020, he took Stage 6 of the Tour de France.
Then 2021 marked the peak of his career, when he finished seventh overall in the Tour de France.
It just goes to show how formidable he was in his prime.
For a cyclist, winning a single stage in the Tour de France is a ticket to the big leagues.
Take Pidcock, who won on Galibier Mountain last year. He was immediately promoted from a workhorse domestique to a core team leader.
His salary this year is a whopping two million euros.
Of course, now over thirty, Lutsenko was past his prime and on the decline.
was the peak of his career.
But even so, a rider still active on the World Tour competing in Asia would normally be an overwhelming mismatch. He’d have no real competition.
He glanced at Huang Chong’s results from the Tour of Qinghai Lake. He couldn’t help but frown when he saw Huang Chong had won three mountain stages.
Lutsenko was a Classics and stage-race specialist. With his vast experience, a single look at the data was enough. Even without ever meeting Huang Chong, he could deduce the man was either a pure Climber or a more versatile GC Cyclist.
He asked:
"This Chinese rider didn’t compete in the ITT at the Asian Championships. How strong is he in that discipline?"
The Kazakhstan head coach replied:
"There’s very little information about him on the official UCI website. The data I could find is limited.
But I heard through the grapevine that this Chinese rider won both the road race and the ITT at their National Championships for two years running.
The rider they pitted against Yevgeniy at the Asian Championships was Xue Ming, and he was quite strong himself.
Since Huang Chong was able to beat Xue Ming to defend his two national titles, his ITT skills can’t be that bad."
"Okay, I understand. He starts after me, right?"
"Yes. He’s the very last rider to start, number 14. You’re second to last, number 13."
The Kazakhstan head coach wasn’t too concerned about the start order.
An ITT is purely a contest of an individual’s threshold power.
You either have it or you don’t. There are no teammates to help you draft.
Riders who start early don’t have real-time data from their rivals for reference, but they’re under far less psychological pressure. They just have to pace themselves and put out their maximum power.
On the other hand, riders who start later can use their rivals’ real-time data to adjust their own pace.
But if they see their opponent is stronger and try to force the pace to match, they’re more likely to crack mentally.
And that sets off a chain reaction. Their heart rate, power output, everything—it all goes haywire.
In short, unless you’re in a league of your own, starting last isn’t necessarily an advantage.
"Then we’ll see what he’s really made of in the race tomorrow. I’ll just focus on my own ride. Let’s see if he can catch me!"
Lutsenko concluded, having not gotten much data on Huang Chong.
Truth be told, he was extremely confident in his own abilities and, on a gut level, wasn’t particularly worried about Huang Chong.
Especially considering his spectacular performance in the Classics after this year’s Tour de France.
Take the Circuito de Getxo - Memorial Hermanos Otxoa, for instance.
He had just pulled off a solo victory, beating out big names like Trentin, Ulissi, and Skujiņš.
Afterward, at the Pantani Memorial Race, he won again, this time beating riders like Hillish, Sivakov, and Simon Yates.
His World Tour season for the year might be over, and his body might be pushed to its absolute limit...
’But deep down,’ he thought, ’even if I’m completely exhausted, am I really going to choke in a competition against other Asian riders?’
...
Over in the Japanese Team’s camp, the atmosphere between the coaches and riders was far more tense than in Kazakhstan’s.
The Japanese Team’s roster was still centered around the 39-year-old veteran Arashiro Yukiya and Koishi Yuma.
Both of them had lost directly to Huang Chong at the Asian Championships, and the rivalry between Japan and China was one with deep historical roots.
The Japanese, and the South Koreans as well, would secretly contend with China in any and every field.
And of course, the feeling was mutual.
"Our primary goal at these Asian Games isn’t to challenge the dominance of the Kazakh riders. It’s to ensure we don’t lose to the Chinese riders again, like we did at the Asian Championships.
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