Many people may not have heard too much about him, but Jasper de Buyst is one of the most promising young track talents on the European stage today. He proved that during yesterday’s final Madison in the Ghent Six Days.

As expected the young Belgian, who celebrated his 20th birthday yesterday, and his experienced German partner, Leif Lampater, had gathered enough points to gain a bonus lap and thus join Keisse/Stroetinga and De Ketele/Van Hoecke before the decisive Madison.

Despite repeated attacks from both Keisse/Stroetinga and De Ketele/Van Hoecke, De Buyst/Lampater were able to keep their cool and maintain their overall lead to take a rather surprising win.

The Belgian/German constellation led throughout most of the race but was overtaken by their two main rivals on the penultimate day. Ever since the opening day, though, De Buyst/Lampater had collected points in various disciplines and history repeated itself yesterday as they placed 2nd in the 500 Meter TT behind Bartko/Kalz and thus earned the points necessary to take a bonus lap, which brought them alongside Keisse/Stroetinga and De Ketele/Van Hoecke.

After the race, organiser Patrick Sercu, who holds the record for most Six Days won (88), predicted a great future for his young compatriot, even suggesting that De Buyst might go on to claim an Olympic gold medal in the Omnium at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Both De Buyst and Lampater will be present at the Zürich Sixday-Nights which kick off on Wednesday. De Buyst teams up with De Ketele while Lampater will join compatriot Roger Kluge.

Final Result of  Ghent Six Days 2013:

1 Jasper de Buyst/Leif Lampater, 447 p., 2 Iljo Keisse/Wim Stroetinga, 392 p., 3 Kenny de Ketele/Gijs van Hoecke, 378 p., at 4 laps: 4 Morgan Kneisky/Vivien Brisse 233 p., at 7 laps: 5 Silvan Dillier/Tristan Marguet, 214 p.,  at 8 laps: 6 Robert Bartko/Marcel Kalz, 244 p., 7 Christian Grasmann/Andreas Graf, 120 p.,  at 11 laps: 8 Andreas Müller/Yoeri Havik, 134 p., at 12 laps: 9 David Muntaner/Albert Torres, 101 p., at 36 laps: 10 Moreno de Pauw/Nicky Cocquyt, 233 p.

Abandoned: Franco Marvulli/Marc Hester and Jesper Mørkøv/Claudio Imhof.