George Hincapie<\/a> and others \u2014 is the first new American professional team racing a European calendar in more than a decade.<\/p>\nAfter a string of high-profile race invitations and close calls, Oliver\u2019s victory in a rain-soaked stage 2 marked the squad\u2019s first professional win in Europe.<\/p>\n
And with it came the team\u2019s first major leader\u2019s jersey against established WorldTour and ProTeam squads.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s hilly profile across the Belgian Ardennes was challenging, and the team worked all day to put Oliver into position for the final sprint to defend yellow.<\/p>\n
He never got the chance.<\/p>\n
Odd twist on the 3km rule<\/p>\n
The 3km rule both saved Oliver and cost him the jersey at the same time.<\/p>\n
The rule was introduced to prevent GC riders from losing time to crashes or mechanicals in nervous sprint finishes.<\/p>\n
In that sense, it worked exactly as intended Wednesday.<\/p>\n
After the jury adjusted the finishing times, Oliver did not lose any time in the standings.<\/p>\n
However, the rule does not eliminate bonus seconds when they\u2019re in play.<\/p>\n
Riders delayed by crashes receive the same finishing time as the lead group, but they do not get the opportunity to contest the time bonuses awarded at the finish line.<\/p>\n
Two stages remain<\/p>\n
The good news for Modern Adventure Pro Cycling is that there are two stages left. The bad news is they won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n
Oliver wasn\u2019t seriously injured despite being at the bottom of Wednesday\u2019s pileup. Teammates Paul Wright and Kieran Haug also went down, with Wright requiring a few post-race stitches in a hand, team officials confirmed. <\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s 166.7km stage 4 from Dison to Eupen features three hard climbs in the middle of the stage before what could be another sprint finale.<\/p>\n
The race will be decided Friday in the grueling 176.5km fifth stage from Bassenge to Aubel. The hilly course features four first-category climbs in the first half of the stage before a rollercoaster finale, with a sharp unrated climb within 2km of the downhill finish.<\/p>\n
The margins remain razor-thin, and the general classification is still very much in play.<\/p>\n
But to have any hope, the team will need to keep Oliver out of trouble and in contention to claw back bonus seconds on both remaining stages.<\/p>\n
One day in yellow. Two more days to get it back.<\/p>\n
Tour de Wallonie stage 3 results<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Modern Adventure surrendered its first European race leader’s jersey after Ben Oliver was caught in a crash and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[168574,49,48,635,54263,82,56902,106840,258768,106841,54267],"class_list":["post-714176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-audio-true","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-parent_category-road","tag-sports","tag-tag-american-racing","tag-tag-george-hincapie","tag-tag-laurence-pithie","tag-tag-modern-adventure-pro-cycling","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Modern](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/modern-adventure-wallonie-2026.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2278905991-720x480.jpg\"\/)
Pithie celebrates the win after avoiding the massive pileup. (Photo: DAVID PINTENS \/ BELGA MAG \/ Belga via AFP)<\/p>\n