Although he knew full well that he had been the first to cross the finish line in Stage 6, Huang Chong no longer had the strength to celebrate with the fans who were going wild for him at the scene.
His body had completely reached its limit, leaving him looking as if he could barely stay upright.
Fortunately, Bora Team's support staff, who had been waiting at the finish line, rushed over as soon as he crossed it. They helped him off his bike and had him sit directly on the road to bring down his dangerously high heart rate.
But although Huang Chong felt as though his heart was about to explode, his gaze remained fixed on the finish arch.
Because aside from Williams, Narváez, and Del Toro, who had crossed right behind him, he still needed to calculate the stage times of Visma's GC leader Bart Lemmen, who finished fourth, and Quick-Step rider Julian Alaphilippe, who finished fifth.
After the previous stage, the two of them had been fifth and sixth in the general classification respectively. They were tied on time, both 13 seconds behind the leader, Williams, while Huang Chong was 49 seconds behind Williams.
In other words, if he wanted to leap from twenty-ninth overall into the top five after Stage 6, he had to finish 36 seconds ahead of Bart Lemmen and Alaphilippe. In the event of a tie on time, rankings were determined by the riders' best stage results.
If he had merely ridden steadily within the peloton, overturning such a gap would have been as difficult as reaching the heavens.
To put it bluntly, it would have been impossible.
That was why Huang Chong had deliberately joined the breakaway on the final stage.
He had done it for the 6 seconds of time