November 21. The provincial games' road cycling events officially entered their third day of competition.
The weather remained the same today, with dark clouds overhead and fine rain falling like needles.
A faint mist drifted through the entire county town, leaving visibility poor.
Although the roads in the host county town had excellent infrastructure, the constant rain had caused serious pooling. One look was enough to tell they were wet, slippery, and difficult to ride on.
However, the officials had clearly taken into account the harsh conditions of this rainy early-winter weather, so the competition schedule had been pushed back starting yesterday.
Just like yesterday, two road cycling mass-start races would be held today.
From 9:00 to 11:30 in the morning, the women's Group B 40KM mass-start race would take place first.
From 11:30 to 13:30 in the afternoon, the men's Group A 80KM mass-start race would follow.
As the only reserve rider from the provincial team, Huang Chong had no teammates at all. Once the women's race began, he could only warm up on an indoor trainer in the hotel gym.
Meanwhile, the other six participating teams were warming up under the guidance of their coaches and teachers while receiving their pre-race tactical instructions.
Among them, the strongest team was undoubtedly still the Hangzhou Team.
In particular, Wang Bao and Zhou Zitong were the same age as Huang Chong, and both were professional riders whose abilities came very close to the standard of a national first-class road cyclist.
"The race is about to begin. A mass-start race is completely different from an ITT."
Holding a notebook, Liu Jialiang gave instructions to his three riders:
"Based on the ITT results from the day before yesterday, our biggest rival is still Huang Chong from the provincial team.
But there are three