Chapter 403 - 199: An Early Showdown on the Final Montmartre Climb

Immediately, another rider in a light blue cycling kit joined them in a combined breakaway, instantly opening a gap of about 15 seconds on the peloton.

The two were Ben Healy of the Ireland Team and Alexey Lutsenko of Kazakhstan.

Huang Chong watched them break away but, naturally, had no reaction.

Although Healy’s teammate, Ryan Mullen, also from Ireland, was in the five-man group ahead, allowing them to work together, trying to break away from the 90km mark and ride all the way to victory was still a bit too ambitious.

As this wave of attacks subsided, the race was now just 77km from the finish line, and a climb called the Côte de Bievre appeared before the riders.

This was a challenging climb: 1.4km long with an average gradient of 5.5% and a maximum gradient of 7.9%.

After Madouas’s failed breakaway, the host French Team switched tactics, sending another rider, Kévin Vauquelin, to launch a fresh attack on the climb.

This rider from the Arkéa Team had a breakaway ability that was no joke.

After all, he had won a stage in this year’s Tour de France by virtue of his own courageous breakaway on Stage 2.

So, the Belgium Team’s climbing domestique, Benoot, decisively took one of their two team leaders, Evenepoel, and began to chase Vauquelin on the climb.

Although Huang Chong knew that Evenepoel was the double gold medalist of the Paris Olympic Games in his past life, he certainly couldn’t remember the details of how the race had unfolded.

So when he saw his rival attack, his only choice was to accelerate and stay on his wheel.

However, when he reached the front of the peloton and followed his rival over the climb, he glanced back at the pack and saw that Lü Xianjing was nowhere to be found.

At the same time, nearly all the other Asian cyclists—like Arashiro Yukiya from the Japanese Team, Liu Yunyou from the Hong Kong Team, and Cham Ba from the Mongolian Team—had also been dropped during that attack on the climb.

This was the terrifying power of the World Tour Cyclists. After 200km of riding, a casually launched attack on a climb was enough to push the Asian riders to their absolute limit.

But Huang Chong had more or less expected this outcome. Even seeing Brother Lü get dropped didn’t cause any change in his mood.

’Anyway, even without my own domestique, I can just leech off of other countries’ support riders!’

As that attack fizzled out, Ben Healy, who had been in a breakaway for over ten kilometers with Lutsenko in tow, finally managed to link up with his teammate, Ryan Mullen.

However, their time gap to the peloton was only a meager 13 seconds, and Huang Chong and the others had a clear view of their tactical maneuvering.

「The race pushed on.」

After the Bievre climb, the course flattened out into a stretch of flat road and gentle descents.

While the peloton took a moment to recover, Arashiro Yukiya and Cham Ba, who had been dropped on the last climb, seized the opportunity to catch back up to the main group.

But the race had now entered its critical phase. From this point on, Huang Chong had to keep a close watch on Evenepoel’s every move, leaving him no time to worry about the condition of the riders from other Asian countries.

On the next climb, the Côte de Garde, an attack was launched by Novak of Slovenia and Stefan King of the Swiss Team. The climb itself was a short but sharp 1.5km ramp with an average gradient of 4.4% and a max of 10.7%, with the final 600 meters kicking up to 10%.

Their objective in attacking on this climb was clearly not to break away themselves, but to reel in Ben Healy and his companion, who were still working together up ahead.

But as a result, while the peloton did manage to catch Ireland’s Ryan Mullen on the steepest section of the climb, Ben Healy and Lutsenko actually used the climb to pull even further away.

Their lead over the peloton was growing larger and larger.

With 67km remaining to the finish, just as they crested the steep climb, Evenepoel seized the moment while other riders were still catching their breath and decisively launched an out-of-the-saddle attack.

Huang Chong, who had been marking him the entire race, immediately got out of his saddle and stuck to his wheel, refusing to let him go.

’In Huang Chong’s opinion, if I let this guy get away solo, or worse, link up with Ben Healy’s group, it would be incredibly difficult to chase down the three of them working together.’

Seeing Huang Chong sticking to him like glue, Evenepoel’s expression undoubtedly darkened.

After all, Huang Chong was the one who had snatched the White Jersey and the overall podium spot from him at the Tour de France.

And although that was due to his own lack of strength, a rivalry between the two had definitely been forged.

He never imagined that, now on the Olympic stage, Huang Chong would once again be his greatest rival.

Seeing he couldn’t shake him, Evenepoel stopped wasting energy, decisively slowed down, and dropped back into the peloton.

Seizing the opportunity, Stefan King and Italy’s Bettiol launched a coordinated attack on the descent after the Garde climb.

There was a good reason for them to break away here.

The next section, nearly 20km long, consisted of relatively flat roads.

Stefan King was a top-tier time trial specialist, making the flat roads perfectly suited for his attack.

However, with the constant jostling on this flat section, more riders from the peloton soon joined the wave of attacks.

Bettiol never managed to get clear, but Stefan King, working with six other riders, formed a second group that successfully broke away from the main peloton.

These six riders were:

Madouas of the French Team

Nils Politt of the German Team

Michael Woods of the Canadian Team