Hincapie's new team announces its arrival with surprise Tour of Wallonia GC win

American ‘wildcard’ team Modern Adventure Pro Cycling did not travel to Belgium expecting to win the Tour of Wallonia. Just six months into the life of George Hincapie’s new team, they left with two stage wins and the overall race win.

Ben Oliver delivered it on Friday. The New Zealander won the fifth and final stage in Aubel, and the bonus seconds that came with it lifted him from four seconds down to the top of the general classification. It is the first GC win for the new American team — and it arrived in chaos.

The closing stage consisted of 176km route from Bassenge to Aubel and climbed the Côte de la Redoute, the wall made famous by Liège-Bastogne-Liège. It then looped through a hard finishing circuit in the rain. A reduced group came to the line together, with only seconds covering the main contenders.

It turned ugly inside the final 150 metres. Kim Heiduk (Netcompany-INEOS) launched the sprint, Arnaud De Lie surged, and Oliver sat glued to the Belgian's wheel. Then Heiduk clipped Oliver through the last bend and crashed, bringing down several riders behind. Oliver stayed upright, found another gear and edged clear of De Lie to the line.

Riley Sheehan, the overnight leader, was held up behind the wreck. He finished second overall, two seconds down, in a bittersweet echo of his stage-four heartbreak. De Lie completed the podium at five seconds back.

"Absolutely insane week. I couldn't have expected this at the start! We just went all in for the last stage win, survived the climbs, skipped the bonus sprints and in the final sprint, I followed the right wheel. I can't thank the boys enough for all of their support this week. What a ride!" he said on the team’s website.

Oliver had already given the team more than enough to celebrate, with a stage-two win in heavy rain, their first on European soil. The win also put Oliver in the leader’s jersey to go along with teammate Samuel Flórez’s mountains jersey.

However, a late crash on stage three stripped the team of both jerseys. Rather than cut their losses, Hincapie’s men fought back: Flórez reclaimed the climber's lead on stage four, and Oliver scavenged the bonus seconds that kept him within four seconds of the lead going into the finale.

For George Hincapie, the retired American Classics rider who co-founded the team, the manner of the win mattered as much as the result.

"I'm really proud of all the guys this week - riders and staff. We were put in a new position by winning stage two and taking the overall lead, and the guys all stepped up. In fact, not only did they step up, but they took control. Today they rode with confidence, they sat back all day, biding their time for the finish and in the end it paid off. I could not be any happier with the guys. Super proud," Hincapie said, also on the team website.

The scale of it is hard to overstate. Modern Adventure has existed for roughly six months. By the team's own account, some of its riders had never raced in Europe before this trip. They leave Wallonia with two stage wins, the points jersey and the overall — ahead of a field that featured De Lie, stage-one winner Jordi Meeus and stage-three winner Laurence Pithie.

Oliver, 29 and from Christchurch, is an unlikely figurehead. A former criterium specialist who spent last season with New Zealand's MitoQ project, his first European victories came this week. Now he has a Belgian stage race to his name.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]