Dream come true for Ji Cheng at Tour de France
Road specialist will be first Chinese to ride in the Grand Boucle
Ji Cheng said it would be a dream come true tomorrow when he becomes the first Chinese rider to compete at the Tour de France.
It will also complete a personal ambition for the 26-year-old from Harbin in the northeast of China as he will achieve the clean sweep of taking part in all three grand tours, following his participation at the 2012 Vuelta a Espana and last year's Giro d'Italia.
"For me, personally, finally I did the three grand tours, I can say I'm the first Chinese. I'm really happy for that and also for my dream since I started cycling, so finally I got there. I'm really, really happy," he said.
For my career, I can start the Tour de France, it's already a victory. I can say, I'm the first one to start, but I hope the people can follow my experience
It has been a long road for Ji, who started out as an athlete before switching to track cycling and then moving on to the road.
He came to Europe eight years ago with Dutch team Purapharm before moving a year later to Giant-Shimano.
But he has since been struggling to make his mark.
"Shimano China wanted to support some Chinese racers. They wanted someone to go to a European professional team to race, to finally have a Chinese rider start the Tour de France," Ji said. "I'm lucky they called me.
"I'm really, really happy. The first year I was really sad, it was completely different. When you come to Europe, it's the small, funny things. When you come home from a race on Sunday and on Monday everything is closed in the city because they have some special holiday."