CYCLING – TEAM Bahrain Victorious stars Lenny Martinez and Jakob Omrzel both claimed top 10 finishes yesterday in their respective elite men’s road races in Europe.
Martinez placed eighth overall in the 90th La Fleche Wallonne in Belgium – a one-day Ardennes Classic on the 2026 Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) World Tour.
Omrzel, on the other hand, also took eighth in the third stage of the 49th Tour of the Alps in Italy – part of the five-leg event on this season’s UCI Pro Series.
Martinez battled hard for a place in his race’s top three but finished amongst a trailing group that was 10 seconds from winner Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM Team.
“Disappointing because I wanted to fight for the podium,” said the Frenchman after completing the 200-kilometre ride.
“I felt good throughout, but in the final [kilometres], I just didn’t have it in the legs when I tried to go, so I had to push to the finish.”
Martinez’s Spanish teammate Pello Bilbao was not far behind in 18th overall 24 seconds from Seixas, while Slovenian Matej Mohoric and Edoardo Zambanini followed for Bahrain Victorious in 66th and 67th, respectively.
Croatian Fran Miholjevic was classified 122nd amongst the 175-rider field while Belgian Vlad van Mechelen and Spaniard Pau Miquel both did not finish.
Meanwhile, Omrzel climbed another one spot to seventh on the Tour of the Alps’ general classification (GC) following his eighth-place finish in yesterday’s 174.5km third stage.
The Slovenian battled as part of a massive bunch sprint to the finish, led by Tom Pidcock of Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, who won in 4:23:24.
Omrzel’s jump in the race’s overall ranking moved him to 29 seconds behind GC leader Giulio Pellizzari of Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe. He also improved one place to climb into a podium position in third on the best young rider rankings, which is also topped by Pellizzari.
Amongst Bahrain Victorious’ other squad members yesterday, Omrzel’s countryman Roman Ermakov finished 50th in the stage and Austrian Rainer Kepplinger was 56th, whereas teammates Oliver Stockwell from Britain, Max van der Meulen from the Netherlands, Balint Feldhoffer from Hungary, and Kasper Borremans from Finland all finished outside the stage’s time limit.
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