For the past three or four years the Six Days in Rotterdam has been the unofficial Six Days World Championships due to the unparalleled strength of the peloton. This year, however, there are some very notable absentees. Regrettably Iljo Keisse and Jasper De Buyst (Belgium), Michael Mørkøv (Denmark) and Leif Lampater (Germany) do not participate in this year’s edition of the Dutch race for various reasons.

On the bright side, however, their absence might lead to a very broad field of potential winners as witnessed by the events in the Ahoy Arena on the opening night yesterday. No less than six teams sit at the same lap with Dutch duo Stroetinga/Kreder just edging out Belgian pre-race favourites De Ketele/De Pauw, winners of the London Six Days earlier this season.

The parity of the peloton was evidenced in the opening Madison of the night as 12 out of the 14 teams ended up in the same lap. Stroetinga and Kreder laid the foundation for their overnight lead by winning the final sprint and thus the second Madison of the evening. The two Belgians responded by winning the points race ahead of Mørkøv/Rasmussen.

Evidently it is too early to make any predictions about the outcome of the Six Days but it seems fair to assume that the winners will be one of the six teams currently on the same lap.

General classification after Day 1

1. Wim Stroetinga - Raymond Kreder (Holland) 61

2. Kenny De Ketele - Moreno De Pauw (Belgium) 59

3. Albert Torres - Sebastian Mora (Spain) 50

4. Niki Terpstra - Yoeri Havik (Holland) 45

5. Jesper Mørkøv - Alex Rasmussen (Denmark) 34

6. Morgan Kneisky (France) - Christian Grasmann (Germany) 13

At 1 lap

7. Filippo Pozzato (Italien) - Jens Mouris (Holland) 22

At 2 laps

8. Sebastian Wotschke - Hans Pirius (Germany) 13

9. Barry Markus - Jesper Asselman (Holland) 10

At 3 laps

10. Lucas Liss - Marcel Kalz (Germany) 12

At 4 laps

11. Michel Kreder - Andre Looij (Holland) 11

12. Vojtech Hacecky - Jiri Hochman (Czech Republic) 0

At 5 laps

13. Alex Buttazzoni - Marco Zanotti (Italy) 0

14. Melvin van Zijl - Michael Vingerling (Holland) 0