For an ITT race, scouting the course in advance was undoubtedly the highest priority.
A few days before the race began, Zurich cleared the course for the riders during designated hours to help them familiarize themselves with the road conditions.
Coach Han led the team throughout, ensuring Huang Chong's TT bike training went smoothly.
As pre-race training, Huang Chong did not go all out. He simply rode the route several times and memorized every turn.
The urban road infrastructure in developed European countries was more or less the same. After nearly a year of racing in the UCI WorldTour, Huang Chong was already very familiar with this side of the world.
So after riding the specific ITT route a few times in advance, he stopped wasting energy and began focusing on the actual race.
At these World Championships, the men's elite ITT was the opening event of the entire competition, while the road race served as the finale.
Many other categories were held in between.
There were women's events, junior events, and para-cycling events. It could be said that the coverage was extremely comprehensive.
But without question, although the World Championships accommodated all kinds of competitive participants in its format, the events that truly drew worldwide attention were still only the men's ITT and road race.
That much was obvious from the schedule.
September 22.
At 3:00 p.m. local time, the first event of these World Championships officially began.
This ITT course was 46.1 kilometers long, with three intermediate time checks at 12.5 kilometers, 26.6 kilometers, and 36.7 kilometers respectively, used to track the riders' real-time results.
For an ITT, that distance was undoubtedly quite long.
Even the strongest riders could not finish without sustaining an intense effort for more than fifty minutes.
For relatively weaker riders, their race times