On May 1, while China was observing the Labor Day holiday and people across the country were enjoying a brief respite from their busy lives, Huang Chong, who was in Germany, had to compete with his team in the Eschborn–Frankfurt one-day race held on Bora Team's home turf.
This race might not have been particularly important to the other UCI WorldTour teams.
But as the only German team, Bora Team was determined to defend victory on home soil.
So Aldag directly sent out Huang Chong, who had chosen to rest after Liège–Bastogne–Liège, as the team's leader once again.
And the ultimate workhorse, Adria, was his key domestique.
In addition, the team's German riders naturally had to take part as well, so they sent German national champion Buchmann and Maximilian Schachmann.
The remaining three domestiques were all foreign climbers: Frederik Wandahl, Marco Haller,
and Sergio Higuita.
Without question, although Bora Team had not sent their main climbing domestiques to a mountainous race like today's, these third-string riders were more than strong enough.
They had only one objective: have the domestiques wear down the other teams' riders over the first two mountain climbs, then let Huang Chong launch a solo attack on the final steep climb with 35 kilometers remaining.
The bookmakers had placed Huang Chong third in the pre-race odds to win.
Although none of the teams had brought particularly famous domestiques, the old white Europeans clearly still had some doubts about Huang Chong's ability.
Huang Chong did not have any extra thoughts about that.
Not being the top favorite was perfect. It meant he would not be watched so closely by the other teams.
In any case, he had already examined every team's lineup before the race. Aside from Maxim Van Gils of the Lotto team and Neilson Powless of