{"id":620303,"date":"2026-06-04T06:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T06:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/620303\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T06:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T06:42:14","slug":"first-european-win-for-the-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/620303\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;First European win for the team!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>The team had already won twice in 2026 before arriving in Belgium. Samuel Florez took Stage 5 of the Tour of the Gila, while Stefan de Bod claimed the South African national time trial title. Oliver\u2019s result lifted that early progress onto a higher platform, coming against established sprint opposition and with Hincapie present at the race.<\/p>\n<p>Modern Adventure\u2019s fast start gets a European headline<\/p>\n<p>Modern Adventure had already been active across the opening two days in Wallonie. Florez took the KOM jersey from the Stage 1 breakaway, while Oliver finished fourth behind Jordi Meeus in the opening sprint. A day later, the team converted that promising start into its clearest statement so far.<\/p>\n<p>The significance was not only in the result itself. Oliver won after a difficult final, moved into the overall lead, and gave the team a European breakthrough before the season had reached its midpoint.<\/p>\n<p>Modern Adventure directeur sportif Ty Magner framed the victory around the collective approach the team has tried to build since its first race days. \u201cWe\u2019ve been telling the team for months to commit to each other, commit to the plans, commit to being a team, and results will follow,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maprocycling.com\/news\/ben-oliver-wins-s2-tourdewallonie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Magner said post-stage<\/a>. \u201cFrom day one in Alula the guys showed what was possible, and it\u2019s only taken 6 months to take our first win in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That first European win came at the end of a wet, messy finale in Libramont-Chevigny. Red Bull &#8211; BORA &#8211; hansgrohe had looked well organised for Meeus, with Danny van Poppel guiding the race leader into the sprint and Arnaud De Lie on Meeus\u2019 wheel.<\/p>\n<p>Oliver\u2019s route to victory was less straightforward. The New Zealander unclipped heading towards the finish, before teammates Riley Pickrell and Paul Wright helped bring him back into position in the final 1500 metres. From there, Oliver finished off the team\u2019s biggest result yet.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/george-hincapie-69dd1ec62aa0b.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto h-auto\" alt=\"George Hincapie ahead of Paris-Roubaix 2026\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Hincapie is the spearhead behind Modern Adventure Pro Cycling Team<\/p>\n<p>Oliver delivers the breakthrough moment<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst European win for the team!\u201d Oliver said after the stage. \u201cWe were chasing stage wins this week, and to get that on the second stage after a close day yesterday with fourth with George watching before he heads home tomorrow. To get it done whilst he was here was an awesome way to finish a wet and windy day in the Tour of Wallonie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oliver\u2019s victory also added an individual success story to the team\u2019s wider start. Magner pointed out that the rider was racing criteriums in the United States this time last year, before now winning in Europe and taking the leader\u2019s jersey at a 2.Pro race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlso just extremely happy for Ben. This time last year he was racing crits in the states, and for him to have these opportunities now is one reason this team was founded,\u201d Magner said. \u201cA bike racer will always be a bike racer. We\u2019ll enjoy this one!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oliver also credited the teammates who helped save his sprint after the late problem. \u201cThe boys had my back all day,\u201d he said. \u201cMe and Riley were in a good position for the sprint then him and Paul got me out of trouble with 1500m to go. We got the job done &#8211; a wicked day for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Modern Adventure now head into Stage 3 with Oliver in the overall lead and Florez still wearing the KOM jersey. Six months into its first season, Hincapie\u2019s team has its first European win, its biggest result so far and a clearer place in the professional peloton than many new projects manage to earn so quickly.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; The team had already won twice in 2026 before arriving in Belgium. Samuel Florez took Stage 5&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,111518,111519,101,210573,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-620303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-george-hincapie","tag-modern-adventure-pro-cycling","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-wallonie","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}