Chapter 404 - 199: An Early Showdown on the Last Montmartre Climb (Part 2)

Fred Wright from the British Team.

Cham Ba from the Mongolian Team.

And Marco Haller from Austria.

Marco Haller was also Huang Chong’s teammate on the Red Bull Bora Team.

"The race has now reached a point where, with the second group formed, the riders are about 10 kilometers away from officially re-entering the Paris City Center.

Judging by the current situation, among our country’s riders, although Lü Xianjing has completely dropped from the peloton and is certainly out of contention for a medal, Huang Chong’s condition is still quite good."

"That’s right. Just now, Belgium’s Evenepoel launched a probing attack, and Huang Chong stuck with him easily. This shows that he didn’t expend much energy over the first two hundred-plus kilometers.

However, after they return to the Paris City Center, they’ll face the final stage: three laps on the cobbled roads of Montmartre.

This will certainly be where the top contenders for the title launch their all-out attacks.

Whether Huang Chong can withstand the assault from the number one classics rider, van der Poel, will directly determine the final outcome of the entire race—"

However, before Director Xiao, the special commentator for CCTV, could finish his sentence, with the peloton 53 kilometers from the finish line, Matej Mohorič of the Slovenia Team suffered a mechanical failure.

Immediately after, just one kilometer later, both of the Danish Team’s leaders, Pedersen and Skjelmose, also suffered mechanical failures.

They had to drop to the very back of the peloton to swap their bikes.

Faced with this string of on-the-spot incidents, Huang Chong couldn’t afford to worry.

He needed to stick tightly to the peloton’s rhythm and stay on Evenepoel’s wheel.

After all, Belgium had long since taken control of the peloton and begun actively chasing the two breakaway groups, which were about 1 minute 15 seconds and 30 seconds ahead, respectively.

What did this mean?

It meant the Belgium Team clearly had a tactical plan for the upcoming sections, and he had to be cautious and defend strictly against it.

Then, when they were only 50 kilometers from the finish line and turned out of a street packed with dense buildings, the space suddenly opened up.

They had officially returned to the Paris City Center and entered the final laps around Montmartre.

Just off the road was the famous Seine River.

However, Huang Chong had seen this river many times during his previous training rides.

In reality, it wasn’t as romantic as the stories back home made it out to be. On the contrary, the water was yellowish and quite murky.

You could tell at a glance that the French hadn’t done a great job managing it.

After crossing the bridge over the Seine River, with 46 kilometers left to the finish, the first climb of Montmartre (Côte de la Butte Montmartre) finally arrived.

This cobbled climb was 1.1 kilometers long, with an average gradient of 5.9% and a maximum gradient of 8%.

But the average gradient of the first 300 meters was very low, only 4.8%, and it was all asphalt.

Only the last 800 meters, the section circling the Sacred Heart Cathedral, were entirely paved with cobblestones.

The average gradients were 6.3% and 8% for the subsequent 300-meter sections, followed by 4.4% for the last 200 meters.

Clearly, the difficulty of this climb was concentrated in the middle 600 meters.

The beginning and the end were relatively easy.

However, upon entering the Montmartre section, the fans watching from the city center were overwhelming. The roadsides were packed with people.

Some young women, unable to push to the front of the crowd, were even perched on their boyfriends’ shoulders to watch the race—

This caused the race route to narrow instantly, leaving just enough width for a single team support car to pass through.

Huang Chong knew the road conditions, so he stayed near the front of the peloton the entire time.

This was both for his own safety and to better defend against any attacks from Evenepoel.

After all, on such a narrow road, if he ended up like Pedersen and Skjelmose of the Danish Team and dropped to the back of the group due to a mechanical issue, he would lose a massive amount of time to the peloton.

If the riders at the front launched an attack, those at the back would have no way to respond.

After riding with the peloton over the first 300 meters of asphalt on Montmartre and making a right turn onto the cobblestones, Huang Chong’s first instinct wasn’t to attack. Instead, he looked for his country’s staff at the feed zone on the side of the road to get his supplies.

With over 40 kilometers still to go, he definitely needed to take an Energy Gel and some water.

’If I don’t eat now, there definitely won’t be time for food and drink on the final lap here.’

But just as he grabbed his supplies and began to refuel, the Dutch Team’s van der Poel launched a violent, out-of-the-saddle attack right on the cobblestones.

This move instantly ignited the emotions of all the fans watching by the roadside!!

At the same time, back in the commentary booth, Director Xiao’s voice instantly grew tense:

"Van der Poel has attacked on the very first lap of the Montmartre climb!!!

Look at that explosive power! It’s simply immense! He’s immediately opened a gap of several dozen meters on the peloton!!

Only Van Aert of the Belgium Team has managed to stick to his wheel!!

We can’t see Huang Chong or Evenepoel in this attack; they’ve clearly been dropped and left far behind!!

This is what the ’Both Vans’—the two best riders in the classics—are capable of! They’re truly living up to their status as top contenders for the Olympic road race title!!"

"Although Huang Chong and Evenepoel have excellent results in Grand Tours, competing with the ’Both Vans’ in explosive power on a short, steep, cobbled climb like this is incredibly difficult.

We can only hope they can catch up to the two of them after this climb!"