The Bora Team Leader's surprise was perfectly understandable.
As an Asian country where professional road cycling was still in its infancy, China presented a particular case. While UCI events at every level had already established a presence across its vast territory, the Europeans were well aware that Chinese cyclists still had a very long road ahead of them.
It wasn't that they didn't pay attention to China's professional cyclists; after all, the country represented a massive economic market.
When it came to major professional sports, who wouldn't want China to catch up and get involved?
Fundamentally, this was a fantastic thing for global competitive sports.
Take FIFA, for example. They tried to expand the number of World Cup spots in an attempt to bring China into the fold.
And as for the extremely niche sport of snooker, without the Chinese market, the Brits would have likely seen their domestic circuit collapse long ago.
