Two riders in light blue kits then launched a joint breakaway, immediately opening a gap of around fifteen seconds on the peloton.
They were Ireland Team's Ben Healy and Kazakhstan's Alexey Lutsenko.
Huang Chong naturally had no reaction when he saw the two choose to break away.
Although the five-man group up ahead included his teammate, fellow Irishman Ryan Mullen, who could work with Ben Healy, trying to break away at the 90-kilometer mark and ride all the way to victory was still far too difficult.
As that attack ended, the race reached a climb called Côte de Bièvres with only 77 kilometers remaining.
This climb was no joke: 1.4 kilometers long, with an average gradient of 5.5% and a maximum of 7.9%.
After Maduas's breakaway attempt failed, host nation France Team sent another rider, Kevin Vauquelin, attacking on the climb.
This Arkéa–B&B Hotels rider's breakaway ability was no laughing matter.
After all, he had taken a stage win in Stage 2 of this year's Tour de France through a fierce solo breakaway.
Belgium's climbing domestique Benoot decisively led one of his two leaders, Evenepoel, in pursuit of Vauquelin on the climb.
Huang Chong knew that Evenepoel had won two gold medals at the Paris Olympics in his previous life, but there was no way he could remember the details of the race itself.
So when Evenepoel attacked, he could only accelerate and stay glued to him.
However, after reaching the front of the peloton and following him over the climb, Huang Chong looked back and discovered that Lü Xianjing was no longer in the group.
At the same time, nearly every Asian rider—Japan Team's Yukiya Arashiro, Hong Kong representative Liu Yunyou, Mongolia Team's Qiangba, and the others—had been dropped during the attacks on that climb.
That was the terrifying