Oliver Naesen

Naesen turned professional in August 2014 as a stagiaire with the Lotto–Belisol team, before joining Topsport Vlaanderen–Baloise in 2015 and Swiss UCI WorldTeam IAM Cycling in 2016.[8]

He made his Grand Tour debut at the 2016 Tour de France,[9] in which he was awarded the combativity award on the fourth stage.[10] He made a spectacular crash in the last corner of the stage 18 mountain time trial, but finished his maiden Tour in 83rd position overall.[11]

Weeks after the Tour de France, he won the Bretagne Classic; his first victory in a UCI World Tour race.[12] In September, he finished second in the general classification of the 2016 Eneco Tour after a strong performance in the final stage to Geraardsbergen.[13] His results earned him a selection for the World Championship road race in Qatar, in which he finished 23rd.[14]

Following the discontinuation of the IAM Cycling team, Naesen signed a two-year contract with French team AG2R La Mondiale.[15] In the spring of 2017, he confirmed his status as a classics talent with top-10 finishes in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, E3 Harelbeke and Gent–Wevelgem. In the Tour of Flanders, he was in a three-man chase group behind Philippe Gilbert, when Peter Sagan, leading the group, crashed on Oude Kwaremont and brought down Naesen and Greg Van Avermaet. Naesen and Sagan broke their bike frames, preventing them from defending their podium positions, and Naesen ultimately finished 23rd.[16] In Summer, he won the 2017 Belgian National Road Race Championships in Antwerp,[5] before competing in his second Tour de France.

In 2018, he finished 11th at the Tour of Flanders and 12th in Paris–Roubaix. In August, he won the Bretagne Classic Ouest–France for the second time in three years.[6]