Bora Team's manager's surprise was entirely understandable.
China was an Asian country where professional road cycling had only just begun. Although UCI races of every level had already entered its vast territory, Europe's old hands all knew that Chinese riders still had a very long road ahead of them.
It was not as though they ignored Chinese professional riders. After all, China possessed an enormous economic market.
As long as it was a major professional sporting event, who would not want China to keep pace and get involved?
For competitive sports worldwide, that was inherently a tremendous boon.
Take FIFA, for example. It had tried expanding the number of World Cup slots in hopes of bringing China into the fold.
And for the extremely niche sport of snooker, without the Chinese market, the British probably would have been unable to keep their domestic events running long ago.
Therefore, Huang Chong's sudden emergence as a road cyclist, along with his astonishing performances in the first two multi-day UCI WorldTour races, was exactly the kind of development the UCI itself hoped to see.
After Huang Chong finished the ITT, the Chinese sports commentator's voice became exceptionally excited.
As the only platform broadcasting professional road cycling live in China, he naturally had a clear understanding of the overall level of domestic riders.
Apart from Huang Chong, Xue Ming of Tianjin Team and Miao Chengshuo of Shandong Team were considered China's strongest ITT riders.
But for them to produce a performance like Huang Chong's—already infinitely close to world-class level, with an average speed of 53 KM/H—was simply impossible.
For Xue Ming, even reaching 51+ KM/H on a completely flat course was already incredibly difficult.
"Dear cycling fans, let us congratulate Huang Chong on taking fifth place overall in the UAE Tour ITT!!
"Although he