Ultimately, Huang Chong and Vingegaard exchanged a glance. Words were hardly necessary; they had reached a silent agreement to chase Pogačar together.
But Huang Chong wasn't stupid. He wouldn't pick up the pace right from the start of the descent.
Instead, he intentionally slowed his pace, waited for his team leader Roglič to catch up, and only then did he move to the front of the trio and start accelerating down the mountain to chase Pogačar.
Of course, waiting for his team leader came at a price. Pogačar was now more than 20 seconds ahead of them.
However, Huang Chong's descending speed was simply too fast. After Pogačar extended the gap to about 30 seconds, his sheer speed on the descent prevented it from growing any larger.
But Evenepoel, who had been dropped and was alone behind them, clearly didn't have top-tier descending skills. The trio quickly opened up another gap of nearly 20 seconds on him.
