I will practice more in the United States

Chapter 171 The game begins

Peter came up to me with a marker and wanted an autograph very excitedly.

But Patrice just glanced at him lightly and ignored him.

If he had seen fans coming to him asking for autographs some time ago, he might have happily signed them.

But ever since he was beaten by Li Ang, he has understood that for a professional athlete, the most important thing is his own strength and the results he can achieve. Everything else is empty and has no use except a waste of energy.

No matter how much you create your personality and favor your fans, it will not be more effective than winning a championship in the end.

Pete was stunned on the spot with some embarrassment, but this is normal, and no one stipulates that if a fan wants an autograph, he must sign it.

He just went up to try his luck.

But when he turned around and came back, he suddenly found that Patrice had stopped where he had just walked.

"The coach asked you to get ready to go. You will need to register later."

He made his voice as soft as possible and said to Li Ang.

Although Patrice always looked arrogant in front of others, he really didn't dare to show off when it came to Li Ang.

Competitive sports is the king's way, and it is also equivalent to status.

Li Ang nodded and said with a smile:
"These friends of mine seem to be fans of You, how about you sign autographs for them?"

Patrice suddenly heard that Li Ang's friend was still a fan of him, and he felt a little happy. This at least meant that in their hearts, he was no worse than Li Ang. Now he would be happy to ask him to sign his autograph.

"By the way, there's also the person behind you."

Li Ang pointed at Pete who was following behind.

There was no way, the only signature pen was still in his hand.

At this time, Peter was already stupid. He greeted him happily, and others ignored him. Now Li Ang just said a few words lightly, and Patrice even signed an autograph for him with a smile on his face.

Such a change can only mean one thing, that is, what Li Ang said before is true.

"It's broken, my signed clothes!"

Peter's heart skipped a beat. He went back and tried washing the dress, but he couldn't completely remove the signature on it, so he gave the dress to his mother to use as a rag, not knowing if it was still there.

If Li Ang is really the record-breaking genius, then with his talent and future development, he will definitely surpass Patrice.

Little Eric scoffed when he said last time that the signature on the frame could double the value of the car. Now it seems that it is not an exaggeration at all.

Therefore, even if Patrice signs his name on the clothes now, he is far from the joy he felt just now, and is even a little heartbroken.

Of course, no matter how thick-skinned he is, he is too embarrassed to ask Li Ang to sign an autograph for him now.

"Okay, you continue chatting, I'll go over first."

Li Ang waved to them and followed Patrice back to the big team.

Only then did Peter realize that the clothes exposed under Li Ang's coat seemed to be the uniform of their team, but it was a pity that he only noticed it now.

Eric saw Peter who was in a daze and joked:
"How's it going? There's no loss in this trip, right? I got Li Ang's signature for you last time, and I got Patrice's signature this time. Your friends in the club will be jealous of you."

The more he heard Eric say this, the more uncomfortable Peter felt.

"Hey, why did that tourist get into the motorcade?"

"Are you stupid? He is a professional driver. Didn't you see Patrice next to him? I specifically called him back."

"A Chinese professional driver? Or from an intercontinental professional team."

After Li Ang returned to the team, more and more people noticed the only Chinese player in the intercontinental professional team.

Everyone cast curious glances at him.

"This is the first time I've seen a Chinese player in an intercontinental professional team. I don't know how good he is?"

"If you ask me, these Chinese people are not good at this sport at all. If you don't believe it, you can look at the contestants in the Tour de France. How many of them can you see with yellow skin?"

"Shh, please keep your voice down, you can't say this kind of thing outside."

Although everyone knows some things, no one dares to publicly express such discriminatory remarks, otherwise it will not be fun to be entangled by those people.

"But he is really handsome! He looks just like those celebrities!"

"It doesn't seem to matter whether you have the strength or not. Just the looks and figure alone are enough to beat them."

"I can't see any blemishes on his face. If it were him, there seems to be nothing unacceptable to Chinese Americans."

"With a figure like that and a professional cyclist, you might not be able to get out of bed, my dear."

Obviously, Li Ang's appearance not only attracted those who specially watched the game, but also made many beautiful women unable to leave his place.

But soon, these spectators discovered that Li Ang's status in the team seemed to be quite extraordinary. Not only was he standing in the middle of the team, but the team manager kept coming up to talk to him in a pleasant manner.

With such treatment, there is only one possibility, and that is that this Chinese player is likely to be the strength of the team.

Soon, the audience on the other side burst into cheers, and everyone's eyes were attracted. Only then did they realize that two World Tour professional teams had entered the venue.

This is the top 18 teams in the entire world that can secure a guaranteed spot in the Tour de France.

As strong as the United States, it still does not have a World Tour professional team.

For a professional cyclist, being able to join the WorldTour racing team can be regarded as climbing to the highest level of his career. After that, he is pursuing the three major tours, namely the Tour of France, the Tour of Italy and the Tour of Spain. The results of the competition.

In their eyes, they will basically only focus on teams at the same level as them. Of course, there will be exceptions.

For example, right now, two drivers in these two World Tour professional teams suddenly left the team and walked towards Li Ang's position.

Several people in the Hulk team were extremely excited when they saw these two coming.

These are people who practice hard and aspire to achieve or even surpass their goals.

But none of them expected that these two top players seemed to be coming for Li Ang.

"I'm looking forward to your performance in the future. With your strength, you won't stop here. Maybe the next time we meet, it will be at the Tour de France."

The person who spoke was Jorgensen from the Movistar team, who was also an American.

However, Li Ang was not familiar with him, so he just said hello politely.

Seemingly seeing Li Ang's doubts, Jorgensen also explained:
"Gaviria and I also challenged the third training track before, but we were still a little short of breaking the two-hour mark. I didn't expect you to be able to improve the record so much in one fell swoop. It's really scary."

Although they don't know whether this result is accurate, but even if there is some, it won't be too different. After all, they are players who can be classified into the same level as theirs.

Because Jorgensen is an American, they are all familiar with him, and Gaviria next to him has a good background. He was the winner of the sprint king title in the first World Tour Tour of Guangxi.

Now that they heard that these two top drivers had also challenged this track, they realized that the record of one hour, 56 minutes and 28 seconds set by Li Ang seemed to be even more terrifying than they imagined.

The only good thing is that such players are not their opponents, but their teammates.

In this unanimous external situation, the stronger their teammates are, the happier they will be.

Only when the cake is divided later, competition within the team will begin.

Soon, the pre-match opening ceremony began, and Li Ang subconsciously looked towards the podium, hoping to find a familiar figure. But it's a pity that it didn't happen. The level of this Tour of California race is quite high. Even the deputy governor of California was present. Others were at the mayor level and sports director level. It would be difficult to imagine that with Sheila's relationship, Let her sit on the rostrum.

Li Ang was naturally too lazy to listen to their long nonsense, so he closed his eyes and focused on practicing his internal skills.

With his current state, he no longer needs to assume those characteristic postures to practice some internal skills. With the help of "inner energy", he can practice in any posture as long as he remains still.

It was not until the opening ceremony was about to end that Li Ang suddenly noticed a dark purple figure walking towards the podium out of the corner of his eye.

He looked up and saw that the woman in a dark purple dress was someone other than Silla.

She walked to the center of the rostrum and whispered a few words to the middle-aged man about fifty years old who was sitting next to the deputy governor. Then the two of them looked at her in unison. side.

"Hey, the beautiful woman on the stage seems to be looking at me!"

Patrice suddenly puffed up his chest with pride. Not only him, but also other people in the team also raised their heads.

The woman on the stage wearing a dark purple dress was indeed the best among young women, but it was hard for them to think anything wrong about it. Just looking at her close relationship with the person next to the lieutenant governor, they were so surprised. It's not something they can afford.

Patrice felt that he was shameless enough, but he didn't expect that there was someone more shameless than him. Leon, who was sitting next to him, actually waved in the direction of the stage, as if he really knew him. Same.

Unexpectedly, after Li Ang waved, the woman on the stage actually waved in their direction.

"No, do you really know him?"

Patrice's jealousy was almost beyond words.

Even if he got hold of the beautiful girl Moira in the team, now there is an even better one, which is not in line with his perception of Chinese Americans.

"Any questions?"

Li Ang asked rhetorically.

"No problem, I just express my admiration."

Li Ang actually didn't expect that Silla actually came over. Although she didn't sit directly on the podium, it was obvious that the person who looked at him with her just now was most likely her father.

But judging from his micro-expression, it seems that his attitude towards him is not very good.

Li Ang didn't bother to care. With his attribute panel, he did have the confidence to ignore other people's opinions.

In the last period before the game started, the coach was still emphasizing tactics with them.

"On the first day of the stage, we still focus on playing it safe and working out the cooperation between everyone. At the same time, we mainly observe the performance of other teams in this competition, especially our biggest opponent, Solo Racing Team."

"From the second day's stage, we officially started to exert our strength. With Li Ang as the core, we tried our best to ensure that he could break through the large group."

"Needless to say, there is no need to talk about the individual time trial later. Li Ang can just play freely. In addition, everyone must pay attention."

Soon, time came to the official start of the game.

There are a total of 17 teams and more than 80 people participating in the competition.

As the starting gun sounded, everyone quickly rushed out of the track. The ones at the front were naturally several World Tour-level teams, and behind them, Li Ang's team kept pace with the Solo Racing Team.

In the first half of the race, almost all the riders hugged each other as one, and they were extremely close together. With this arrangement, more riders would enjoy the advantage of reduced wind resistance.

This is also the biggest difference between professional competitions and amateur competitions. In amateur competitions, not long after the competition starts, everyone will divide into small groups.

Li Ang did not over-express himself, and the strength he displayed was equivalent to what he showed in the team.

Even so, he still felt that he was a little too fast, and almost broke out of the group several times.

It wasn't until halfway through the race that the World Tour riders started to exert their strength, and finally there were players from the ordinary continental teams. They gradually couldn't keep up with the big group, and the entire group was stretched into a long strip.

Even if the wind resistance behind them is smaller, the pressure on them is still quite high. The strength of World Tour level drivers is not as good as them.

By the time two-thirds of the race was over, only Li Ang, the captain, and Patrice could keep up with the large group. The other two players in the team had already begun to fall behind.

What is surprising is that all five members of Solo's team have kept up with the pace of the big group, which makes the captain's heart tighten.

If it weren't for the addition of Li Ang this year, their team's overall strength would not be a little behind Solo Team.

"Come on you two, I'll go to the front and have some fun."

Li Ang left a word and started to accelerate. This speed was really boring for him.

The captain also ordered:

"Don't expend too much energy. After all, it's just the first stage. If you perform too well, our team may be targeted later."

Li Ang made an OK gesture and rushed directly to the front row.

"Oh, we can see that this newly joined Chinese driver seems to be starting to exert his strength. He rushed directly to the front row of the team and wanted to break through. We have to admire his courage."

The host also followed the explanation in a timely manner.

There were many people in front who tried to break through, but they were all World Tour riders. Li Ang is currently the first rider from an intercontinental professional team to try to get to the front.

"It seems that this driver does have some strength, and he still retains such abundant physical strength until now."

"I think this is not a good decision. After all, it is only the first day of the game. He is also very excited because he is a newcomer, but it will be detrimental to the subsequent games."

"I think so too. When a player from an intercontinental professional team rushes in front of a group of WorldTour riders, this is undoubtedly a provocation to them. When they show their true strength, they don't know what these intercontinental professional teams are like. Drivers, there are still a few who can keep up.”

Sure enough, when Li Ang rushed to the front, several riders behind him also started to exert force. As you chased me, the average speed of the group increased by at least two to three kilometers per hour.

At this time, the members of Solo Racing Team also began to slowly fall behind. Only their team captain and another newly joined talented driver could keep up.

The captain of Li Ang's team also brightened up. In this way, their lagging players would have a chance to surpass these stragglers.

Gaviria, who had won the title of Sprint King, gradually became serious.

He had just led his team to catch up with Li Ang who wanted to break through several times, but every time they tried to catch up, Li Ang seemed to be able to explode at a higher speed.

So far, he has exerted almost 90% of his strength, but Li Ang next to him still seems to be calm and composed.

He felt that he had high enough regard for this newcomer, but now it seems that it is not enough.

It wasn't until the finish line, when everyone started sprinting, that he realized that Li Ang didn't seem to be exerting his full strength.

Originally, on the first day, no one would work so hard, but because of Li Ang's presence, everyone gave full play to their strength.

If a driver from an intercontinental professional team takes first place on the first day of the race, where will the World Tour drivers put their face?
But it is a pity that no matter how fast they are, Li Ang will always be a little faster than them. In the end, Li Ang won the first place with a slight advantage.

But even this small lead was enough to make the audience cheer.

It is an extremely rare situation for an Intercontinental professional team driver to take first place ahead of all WorldTour team drivers. This is an extremely rare situation in an event of this level.

This also allowed a small number of people who knew the inside story to finally confirm that the rumor that had spread was true, and that a rare genius had really joined their team.

And Li Ang's first place result made Peter even more tormented. He wished he could go back now and save the sweatshirt that was used as a rag.

Soon, the team’s overall score came out.

It is somewhat regrettable that even though Li Ang won first place, their team's overall score was still slightly behind Solo Racing Team.

(End of this chapter)