As Coach Han was laying out Huang Chong's ITT race strategy, the head coach of the Kazakhstan national team was also briefing Lutsenko, their key rider for tomorrow's ITT, on Huang Chong's profile. "Alexey, this Chinese rider named Huang Chong is the guy who took out Yevgeny right before the finish at the Asian Championships this June.
His assignment for this event is the same as yours. China has also entered him in two events.
You need to be careful. His performances this year have been downright terrifying.
I just found out that in July, while you were racing the Tour de France, he also won the overall title at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, a UCI Pro-level stage race.
He is the same age as Yevgeny, only six months younger, but his overall ability is definitely no weaker than Yevgeny's.
I estimate that after the Asian Games, the China national team will also send him to the final UCI WorldTour race held in China: the Tour of Guangxi.
If he can still perform at the level he showed at the Asian Championships, he may well catch the attention of UCI WorldTour teams.
So our biggest opponent this time is no longer Japan Team or Mongolia Team, but China Team."
As a battle-hardened Asian king of cycling, Alexey Lutsenko had produced some truly dazzling results on the UCI WorldTour.
He had won Stage 5 of the Vuelta a España back in 2017.
In 2020, he won Stage 6 of the Tour de France.
Then came 2021, the peak year of his career, when he finished seventh overall at the Tour de France.
That showed just how terrifying he had been in his prime.
At the Tour de France, as long as a rider could win a stage, it was practically