After Paris–Nice and Tirreno–Adriatico concluded, the next UCI WorldTour race was one of the five major Classics that opened the season each year: Milan–San Remo, held in Italy six days later, on March 16.
For Bora Team, this race was undoubtedly unwinnable.
Not only were there far too many elite riders participating, but Bora Team itself also lacked sufficiently top-tier flatland sprinters and Classics specialists.
Judging by this year's start list, the favorites alone were enough to make sports director Aldag see black.
First and foremost was Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates.
Then there were Van der Poel and Philipsen of Alpecin–Deceuninck, Michael Matthews of Jayco AlUla, Mads Pedersen and Jasper Stuyven of Trek, Alberto Bettiol of EF Education, Mohorič of Bahrain Victorious, Olav Kooij of Visma–Lease a Bike, Stefan Küng of FDJ team, Filippo Ganna and Thomas Pidcock of Ineos Grenadiers, Julian Alaphilippe of Quick-Step team, and many more.
In short, against a field filled with Classics and sprinting specialists like these, no matter whom Bora Team sent, even finishing in the stage top ten would be nothing but wishful thinking.
Huang Chong naturally wanted to race. Being able to compete alongside these top riders was valuable in itself; whether he could achieve a result was another matter, but at least he could accumulate experience in one-day races.
However, he knew the team would not send him.
The reason was simple: if they assigned him as a domestique, there was no one on the team worthy of his support.
But if they made him the leader, his current strength still did not qualify.
After all, even Pogačar, currently the strongest GC rider in the world and the same type of rider as him, could not win on this course. Huang Chong had even less reason to hope.
After pondering