Everyone wants to see their favorite team or rider take the victory, but a scene this tense was simply too thrilling.
Races between evenly matched riders are the most heart-pounding and exciting.
Without riders in a league of their own like Pogačar or Vingegaard to dominate the field, the race had a different kind of neck-and-neck excitement.
Huang Chong's decision to defend rather than attack wasn't a choice—it was a necessity.
The batch of system supplies he had received early last year was long gone, depleted over a full year of high-intensity racing and training.
He had hoped that joining a World Tour Team this year would give him the chance to unlock another achievement medal and receive a large cache of supplies. As it turned out, however, these achievement medals weren't so easy to trigger or complete.
Of course, his competitive level had improved to the point that even without cheating with system supplies, he wasn't without a chance of winning.
