Chapter 398 196: Brother Lü and Coach Han, Shocked by Evenepoel

His ability to maintain a stable power output for seven or eight hours, with a cadence that barely changed the entire time, was astonishing. And to top it all off, Huang Chong had led the entire way, breaking the wind for both of them without ever needing them to rotate in. It was a truly eye-opening experience for the pair.

"Huang Chong, you truly live up to your name as the Tour de France runner-up and a champion of various top-tier World Tour races. Just keeping up with you on this Zone 2 aerobic ride almost killed me!"

After the ride, Huang Chong, along with Chen Junyi who had been providing support for them the entire time, went to a high-end café in the Paris City Center to rest. He also treated Brother Lü and Tang Xin to coffee and cake.

But Europeans were heavy-handed with sugar. The coffee was drinkable, but the desserts were sickeningly sweet. Most people from China probably couldn't handle it.

Only women from the provinces known for extremely spicy food could possibly stand that level of sweetness.

Hearing Tang Xin's praise, Huang Chong naturally waved his hand and offered a few modest words.

In truth, to accommodate the lady, today's ride was purely for familiarizing himself with the road conditions. He was just taking it easy.

During his usual team training, a real Zone 2 aerobic ride would have an average power output of over three hundred watts.

At that intensity, most cyclists back in China probably couldn't even maintain it during a race.

After they had trained for several more days, the Olympic Games officially began.

The road cycling competition consisted of four events in total, held over three days.

However, the men's and women's ITT (Individual Time Trial) on the first day of competition was scheduled much earlier than the road race, taking place on July 27th.

Both the men's and women's races had to be completed on the same day.

Neither Huang Chong nor Lü Xianjing had qualified for the ITT, so they could only watch from the sidelines.

As for Tang Xin, she had to go warm up and prepare to compete after the men's race was over.

However, during the men's ITT, watching Evenepoel finish with an average speed of 53.698 km/h left both Huang Chong and Lü Xianjing somewhat speechless.

The guy's ability in a pure flat time trial was just freakishly strong.

Especially since it was raining today. For the full 32.4 km course, the world's number one only took 36 minutes, 12.16 seconds, beating Filippo Ganna by 14.92 seconds.

"This guy's flat-road ability is truly world number one. It's just that his climbing is still a little lacking at the moment. Otherwise, I reckon even Pogačar would be in trouble!"

After watching Evenepoel's race, National Team head coach Coach Han and Lü Xianjing felt their foreheads begin to sweat.

Back in China, they hadn't really felt it, but now, here in Europe, seeing the world's strongest flat-road time trialist with their own eyes, they were truly stunned.

Against someone with Evenepoel's level of strength, besides Huang Chong, China's current best ITT specialists, Xue Ming and Miao Chengshuo, wouldn't even come close.

The gap between them was just too enormous.

Hearing Coach Han's emotional sigh, Huang Chong could only rub his nose, not knowing how to respond.

'When it comes to a flat-road ITT, I'm currently no match for Evenepoel, either. And I definitely couldn't beat Filippo Ganna. Those two are in a league of their own in flat-road time trials.

'But no matter how good he is on the flats, the road race is a hilly course with a lot of short, steep climbs. As for who will come out on top between me and Evenepoel... well, that's still anyone's guess!'

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