As a leader of the China Cycling Association, Coach Han had received notice from the General Administration before the New Year that he would also serve as the head coach of the national road cycling team.
For him, the pressure of this job was undoubtedly enormous.
Not only was the Asian Championships in June fast approaching, but the Asian Games would also be held at the end of the year.
The former was especially crucial, as it concerned whether the country could secure qualification in advance for next year's Paris Olympic road cycling events.
To achieve strong results at the Asian Championships, selecting the right lineup was particularly important.
This year, the National Road Cycling League, organized by the association in partnership with local governments, was intended both to ride the wave of the grassroots road cycling boom and to accelerate the development of professional road cycling in the country.
And as the two stops scheduled before the Asian Championships, their importance went without saying.
In a sense, they were being used by the association to preliminarily determine the national team rider roster.
As head coach, he naturally had to come personally to ensure the quality of the races while scouting sufficiently outstanding riders from these two events.
Although he already had a national team list in hand, it had been submitted by the various provinces and cities last year.
After a winter break, the riders on that list were an unknown quantity in terms of form.
The rider he was most focused on during this trip to Mangshi was undoubtedly Huang Chong of the Zhejiang Team, who had burst onto the scene at last year's National Championships and snatched two gold medals from the Longjiang Team riders.
Huang Chong had not yet made the national team's main roster. If