Chapter 408 - 200: The "Gold Content" of an Olympic Champion, Net Worth Turned Upside Down Overnight

When the support vehicle carrying Coach Han arrived at the finish line a short while later, they could tell as soon as they got out that the entire staff was ecstatic. They rushed over and took turns embracing Huang Chong.

Of course, Chen Junyi and Tang Xin, who had been waiting at the finish line, along with other Chinese athletes who had free time to watch the race, had already celebrated with Huang Chong much earlier.

"Huang Chong, you were truly outstanding!!

You not only won this incredibly precious gold medal for our country, but you also made history!!

From this day forward, I bet anyone back in China who follows the Olympic news will know who you are!!"

Coach Han was already over fifty, and with the combined pressure and hard work of being the head coach for the National Team, his hair had already started to turn white.

But the usually calm and serious man was now as happy as a child.

Obviously, his joy was completely genuine and perfectly justified.

After all, among all the cyclists he was leading on this campaign, it wasn’t just Huang Chong who made a historic breakthrough by winning the road race gold medal. A few days earlier, the very young Deng Yawen had already secured an Olympic gold medal in the women’s freestyle BMX park event, even before Huang Chong.

To win consecutive gold medals in a relatively niche sport like cycling was, without a doubt, an enormous and unexpected windfall that no one could have imagined.

As Huang Chong, Coach Han, and the others celebrated wildly at the finish area, the riders from other countries finally began to cross the finish line one by one.

A grim-faced Evenepoel crossed the line just 45 seconds behind Huang Chong, ultimately taking the silver medal.

As for the French rider Madouas—who had gotten so infuriated by Huang Chong that he was brutally dropped on the climb and had refused to take a single pull at the front for the entire race—he managed to hang on to his advantage while riding solo.

In the end, he finished nearly two minutes behind Huang Chong, claiming the last spot on the podium and the bronze medal that came with it.

The specific rankings after that were of little significance.

It was simply a matter of different placements earning varying amounts of UCI points.

But no one could compare to the gold medalist, Huang Chong.

Because only the champion receives the 900-point UCI bonus.

With the top three already decided, the subsequent riders—even the one who finished fourth—would get no medal and no spot on the podium.

However, what was rather unexpected was that van der Poel, hailed as a top favorite before the race, ended up crossing the line nearly three minutes behind Huang Chong.

As for Van Aert, who had been tightly marking van der Poel, he was almost four minutes behind.

As the old saying goes: when the snipe and the clam grapple, the fisherman profits.

On the first climb up Montmartre, van der Poel and Van Aert—the first to attack and the first to respond—had perfectly illustrated the meaning of this saying with their actions today.

If the two of them hadn’t worn each other out, there’s no way Huang Chong and Evenepoel could have successfully broken away from the chaotic peloton.

And if Huang Chong had ended up in a flat sprint to the finish against the likes of van der Poel, Van Aert, and Laporte (who finished fourth), his chances of winning would have been slim.

The sprinting power of these beasts is second to none on the World Tour.

For a GC Cyclist of his weight, he was at too much of a disadvantage in a short-distance sprint.

As time ticked by, about 20 minutes after Huang Chong had crossed the line, Lü Xianjing, who finished 68th overall, also successfully reached the finish.

Although finishing in that position earned him no prizes, not even a single UCI point, simply being able to complete the race without being eliminated by the time cut was a new record for a Chinese Road Cyclist at the Olympics.

However, with Huang Chong having already won the gold, people probably wouldn’t pay as much attention to the fact that Lü Xianjing had also made history at these Olympic Games.

Later, when the time limit was reached—31 minutes and 15 seconds after Huang Chong had finished—the Ugandan rider, Charles Kagimu, became the last to cross the finish line, officially concluding the race.

Any riders who were still on the course and cycling toward the finish would no longer be included in the official list of finishers.

All in all, out of the 90 riders who started the race, 78 completed it, which was a fairly high completion rate.

However, among the 12 riders who did not finish, the results for Slovenia’s Mohorič and Novak, as well as the Italian veteran Viviani, were undoubtedly a bit of a disappointment.

But that was no concern of Huang Chong’s. After the race, he was busy changing into his National Team uniform to get ready to receive his Olympic gold medal.

Of course, the champion’s national anthem is played at the ceremony. Photos of Huang Chong—gold medal around his neck, a bouquet of flowers in his hands, singing along to the national anthem—were instantly published on the internet back in China by staff from the Red Bull Bora Team, CCTV reporters, and many other media journalists sent to Paris specifically to provide live coverage of the Olympics.

In reality, the news of his gold medal win had reached China long before the podium photos. His name had already shot to the top of the trending lists on all major domestic social media platforms!

Such is the power of winning an Olympic gold medal.

Almost overnight, he, a Road Cyclist from what was once a niche sport, was catapulted to fame, his name spreading far and wide across China.

And after becoming an Olympic champion, Huang Chong would be incredibly busy for the foreseeable future, even while still in Europe.