Heading into the final evening of the Berlin Six Days Race, possibly the most prestigious on the Six Days circuit, German-Belgian team Leif Lampater and Jasper De Buyst could look back on a five day long, uninterrupted lead and thus looked destined to walk away with the honours as they did in Ghent earlier in the season.
One of the intriguing aspects of sports, though, is the unpredictable nature of competition. This once again turned out to be true in the final Madison of the event as Kenny De Ketele and Andreas Müller were able to gain a vital lap and clinch victory. During the final Madison De Ketele – Müller and Bartko – Reinhardt took turns attacking the leading duo and eventually the leaders succumbed to the pressure.
For Andreas Müller victory was especially sweet as he was born in Berlin and made his Six Days debut here back in 2001. After the race he labelled it “the sweetest win of my career”.
More than 75,000 spectators witnessed the race during the six days and those who were present yesterday witnessed a spectacular and attack-infested finale and the last race of Swiss rider Franco Marvulli. The former all-conquering Swiss has been a pale shadow of himself this season and ended his career rather anonymously at 18 laps from the winners.
Next week Robert Bartko will terminate his career at the Copenhagen Six Days. The torch is being passed to a new generation whose finest member is surely Jasper De Buyst who appears destined to wear the mantle of track racing greatness.
Final classification:
1 Kenny de Ketele (BEL) – Andreas Müller (AUT), 250 p.
at 1 lap:
2 Leif Lampater (GER) – Jasper de Buyst (BEL), 308 p.
3 Robert Bartko – Theo Reinhardt (GER), 236 p.
at 2 laps:
4 Vivien Brisse (FRA) – Christian Grasmann (GER), 211 p.
5 Yoeri Havik (NED) – Vojtech Hacecky (CZE), 210 p.
at 11 laps:
6 Tristan Marguet (SUI) – Maximilian Beyer (GER), 143 p.
7 Henning Bommel – Kersten Thiele (GER), 128 p.
at 15 laps:
8 Marcel Barth – Nico Heβlich (GER), 72 p.
at 18 laps:
9 Franco Marvulli (SUI) – Luke Roberts (AUS), 63 p.
10 Jesper Mørkøv (DEN) – Pascal Ackermann (GER), 61 p.
at 19 laps:
11 Tino Thömel – Nils Schomber (GER), 65 p.
at 20 laps:
12 Sebastian Wotschke – Hans Pirius (GER), 100 p.
at 24 laps
13 Guy East – Daniel Holloway (USA), 44 p.
at 25 laps:
14 Martin Blaha – Martin Hacecky (CZE), 27 p.
at 27 laps
15 Niki Byrgesen – Mads Christensen (DEN), 10 p.
DNF: David Muntaner – Albert Torres (ESP)
Igor BOEV 35 years | today |
Elisa LUGLI 22 years | today |
Shao Yung CHIANG 40 years | today |
Christophe PREMONT 35 years | today |
Kevin MOLLOY 54 years | today |
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