"My dream would be to see the Champs Élysées full of Chinese flags" - Inside the project that hopes to produce a generation of elite Chinese cyclists
China Glory - Mentech Director Sportif Lionel Marie speaks to Global Peloton about the team's big ambitions, developing Chinese riders and the Paris Olympics
Last week, Tour de France organisers ASO released an image of the French President Emmanuel Macron on top of the Tourmalet handing a Yellow Jersey to the President of China, Xi Jinping. It was part of Jinping’s recent diplomatic visit to France, a way of building a stronger bond between the two countries.
In a spooky coincidence, on the same day I spoke on the Radio Cycling podcast about China’s ambitions to become a major force in cycling, a move which could change the sport significantly.
China has long been seen as a possible new frontier for the sport of cycling and has been a target of ASO. They have held post-Tour criteriums in Shanghai, WorldTour races like the Tours of Guangxi and Chonming Island have entered the calendar and other efforts like Macron’s gift to Jinping have sought to woo the Chinese to road cycling.
These high profile attempts have, in truth, gained little traction. Now, it seems that a much more under-the-radar project is starting to see momentum build in the world’s second-most populous nation.
The China Glory-Mentech continental team was set up in 2021 with backing from the Chinese Federation, with the aim of scoring the UCI points needed to qualify a Chinese rider for the Paris Olympics - a goal comfortably achieved. Now they aim to build on that success to develop a generation of elite Chinese cyclists, able to take on the world.
This is no small goal, but it's also no small project. Heavily backed by public and private Chinese funds, members of the team management hope that, one day, they will become the first Chinese team at the Tour de France and the first in the WorldTour.
"My dream would be to be part of the Tour de France with the China team and to see the Champs Élysées full of Chinese flags," the team’s head Director Sportif Lionel Marie told Global Peloton.
Marie, an experienced DS within the professional peloton, is not the team's decision maker on such matters, however. Those calls come from within the Chinese Federation and with the team's General Manager, Han Feng.
Marie said of the management's ambition to ascend up the cycling ladder: "They are very quiet with that. First we have the ASEAN Games [the biggest sports competition in Asia], our first event, Olympic games, the Worlds. They don't know yet about the Tour de France, but they start talking about that. So if they want to go to the Tour one day, they know they have to move up [to the WorldTour].”
“But for the moment, the process is they go step by step. I believe we can go Pro Continental one day. And if we go to Pro Continental, we can have an invitation to Europe and different races. It's totally possible, but we need time.”
“The thing is when the country, when they decide to invest, they go full gas. So if the country wants to go one day in the WorldTour, it will not be a big problem to find financial stuff.”
Developing Chinese Riders
It's ten years now since the first Chinese rider rode the Tour de France. That was Cheng Ji, a rouleur who spent his career in the team now known as dsm-firmenich-Post NL. Ji was a solid and respected domestique for the Dutch team who also competed in five monuments and five grand tours.
Several other Chinese male riders have also competed in the WorldTour, including Meiyin Wang, Xu Gang and China’s first racer at that level, Fuyu Li. It would be fair to say that none of these riders quite made it to the same level as Ji, and neither did they have his longevity in the sport. That generation of Chinese cyclists came in their ones-and-twos. They were placed in their respective teams without developing to the required level.
China Glory-Mentech are doing things differently. The team seeks to develop young riders in methods familiar to the European peloton - methods learned by Marie in his years with teams such as Orica - GreenEdge and Israel Start-Up Nation.
The team has a base in Turkey, where at least one member of staff and a translator stays with the riders at all times. It has been a big adjustment for the ten Chinese riders on the squad in 2024.
"It's a completely different way of training. It’s another cycling for the moment, but slowly, slowly they are learning how to do it,” the Frenchman said.
“We have somebody who controls all the data for the riders and the training programme. So our guys, they are training like Europe. So when they go back to their own province, the other guys, they're asking why, why are you doing this or that? So it's a way to teach everyone."
“We have to teach them how to race and how to eat. It's a completely different system. It's another culture. We have to adapt to them, but they have to adapt to us too, if they want to progress. And slowly, slowly, they learn a lot and they learn fast.”
The team also employs four riders with bucketloads of professional European experience; two South Africans, Reinhardt Janse van Rensburg and Willie Smit, and two Frenchmen, Julien Trarieux and Lucas De Rossi.
Marie says that the quartet, with 23 professional seasons between them, are "well paid" and race for the team under the understanding that they support the Chinese riders. If a Chinese rider is in a position to get a result, these riders must lay down their own ambitions for them.
"It's not too easy to find guys who understand the philosophy. So it takes time to select the riders, but I can say with the guys…they find their own way,” he said.
“They love cycling, they love traveling. They know they will not be able to go in a pro-continental or WorldTour [team] anymore, but they have good skills, they have good experience, so they agree to come here to help the Chinese.”
“When they have the opportunity, of course they can take the opportunity. But first, they know they have to help our Chinese guys. It's not that easy because you have some guys who want to keep going for themselves and it's not the objective of the team. So it's very tricky for those who keep thinking they can move up. They have a kind of specific role in the team, so they have to be honest with themselves. They are paid well and they can race. The impact [of a result] in China is way bigger."
For Marie, after years in bigger teams, the experience with the Chinese team has been fulfilling.
“I spent many years in the pro tour and now I am with another cycling. But it's also very interesting, very nice because it's another relationship. It's not only about points, power meters, skinsuits, aerodynamics... No, it's not only about that, it's also about human behaviour.”
“When you have the guys, those guys, some of them, they try to speak English when they had no clue six months ago how to express themselves. It's very, very nice. And also when you see them, when one of them won a race, they are all very happy. They wait, they go to see, if they are not far, they go with the bike to see and to support their colleague. It's refreshing.”
A labour already bearing fruit
All the development work that has been put in over the past four years is showing early signs of success. Last year one of the team's Chinese riders, Xianjing Lyu, became the first Chinese rider in history to win a race on the UCI Europe Tour. The team have backed that up already this season with three more - one from Lyu and two others from sprinter Binyan Ma.
Lyu is a puncheur with a fast finish, who Marie says is "for the moment the only pro-level rider" on the team. He is also the Asian continental champion in cross-country mountain biking, a feat which earned him a spot at the Paris Olympics in the discipline.
26-year-old Lyu is also set to race on the road in Paris as China's only representative in the road race. It's a huge objective for Lyu and for the Chinese Federation. Marie tempers expectations and aims for Lyu to avoid having a ‘DNF’ by his name after the race. "It looks easy, but it's not easy at all," he says.
Binyan Ma, the team's other winner, is a fast sprinter who has already jostled in the top-10 of a WorldTour race on multiple occasions. Ma was 8th on stage 2 of the 2023 Tour of Guangxi.
In the women’s peloton there are also two riders who are making unprecedented progress. Luyao Zeng and Xin Tang signed this season for the Chinese-sponsored French team Winspace. Tang became the first Chinese woman to rider Paris-Roubaix and the first Chinese rider, male or female, to finish the race.
The success of these riders and the team is creating unprecedented enthusiasm in China.
"It's crazy how they follow the team. We have a guy who is doing a newsletter every race and there is a fan club in Beijing. It's crazy what they are doing. They love it. So it's nice."
Whether this enthusiasm will turn into major investment is only known by the higher-ups within the Chinese Federation. To me, all the signs are pointing in that direction, and it could change the sport significantly.
If you enjoyed this, please consider adding a free or paid subscription
or
Other news and stories
The world according to Maurice Burton: Britain's first Black cycling champion (Cycling News)
The women bike racers of Sierra Leone (Rouleur)
Race Round-up
Home-hero Youcef Reguigui won two stages of the Tour d’Algerie
In Burkina Faso, Awa Bamogo won the GP Union Européenne
Atsushi Oka of JCL-UKYO defended his title at the Tour de Kumano
Rwanda’s Moise Mugisha won the GP Develop.Durable
Thanks for reading Global Peloton!
The best way to support Global Peloton is to add a paid subscription. Your subscription enables me to bring you more international cycling news and stories.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing and sharing.
Or, you can Buy Me a Coffee