The good news was that Huang Chong knew that after the S5 Stage, he had a massive lead over Ben O'Connor in the general classification.
First, in the S1 Stage individual time trial, he had gained a huge 1-minute, 7-second advantage over O'Connor.
And at the end of the S4 Stage, he had utterly obliterated him on the long, steep concrete climb in the final section.
His final finishing time was a full 3 minutes and 41 seconds ahead of O'Connor. On top of that, since the S4 Stage was a standard stage, the winner received a 10-second time bonus.
So, adding all three advantages together, his current lead over O'Connor was just two seconds shy of a full five minutes.
With such a large time gap, he could afford to be magnanimous. For the sake of sportsmanship and professional courtesy, he had even mentioned in a pre-race interview that he intended to let the breakaway riders fight for the win on this stage, which was more suited for it—
