Taiwan’s Cycling King Challenge kicks off today, with “amateur rider” Fan Yongyi saying he has prepared for a full year to achieve strong results in this race.

The Taiwan Cycling King Challenge will open the 2013 Taiwan Cycling Festival. The event features a host of international elite riders, while local competitors include last year’s national champion Wang Yin-zhi and top Taiwanese cyclist Feng Jun-kai, who share the responsibility of keeping the title in Taiwan. Additionally, Fan Yongyi, an “amateur rider” who won back-to-back championships in 2010 and 2011, is eager to compete and aims to seize the title again.

Fan Yongyi said he began preparing at the start of the year, training step by step. By June, when competing in Japan, his condition peaked, after which he took a short break. Recently, his form has been fine-tuned to optimal mode. A full year of preparation has been geared toward achieving the best results in this race.

Fan Yongyi said that in all competitions, people only remember the winners who take the championship. Since he started cycling in 2003, his results have consistently been between third and fifth place—seemingly stable—but he was always seen as a “supporting role” type of rider. It wasn’t until he won back-to-back championships in 2010 that people began to take notice, transforming him into a “leading role” type of rider.

Fan Yongyi also said emotionally that because of this, he sees this race as one that changed his life. So no matter whether he can maintain intense training in the future, as long as this race exists, he will keep participating.

The race starts today from Qixingtan in Hualien, near sea level, passing through Taroko, the Central Cross-Island Highway, and climbing all the way to Hehuan Mountain’s Wuling, the highest point on Taiwan’s roads at 3,275 meters above sea level. The total distance is 105 kilometers.

This highly challenging event has attracted 440 riders from 28 countries, including Japan, the United States, Australia, Canada, Denmark, and Italy.

Among the riders, 2012 champion Danish cyclist John Ebsen will aim for a title defense. Other contenders for the win include Australian Simon Clarke, the 2012 Vuelta a España King of the Mountains, and Canadian Cory Wallace, the 2012 and 2013 Mongol Rally Cycling Challenge champion.

(CNA)