The Belgian team Kenny De Ketele and Gijs Van Hoecke won the 21st Amsterdam Six-Day this evening. The former Madison world champions defeated Leif Lampater and Raymond Kreder in a spectacular final chase. Dutch Duo Jens Mouris and Wim Stroetinga claimed the third place.

The favourites didn’t give each other time to get into the rhythm at the beginning of the last night. During the first Madison, there were lots of attacks and counterattacks and every move was covered with another one. Eventually, Lampater and Kreder were the only ones to take a lap.

Five couples fought for the overall win in the second Madison after Stöpler-Havik and De Ketele-Van Hoecke went round early. De Ketele and Van Hoecke, however, pulled off a doublette in the closing laps to secure the victory. Mouris/Stroetinga seemed to have everything under control with less than ten minutes remaining but then both De Ketele/Van Hoecke and Lampater/Kreder broke clear. As they chased a lap, De Ketele was shaking his head repeatedly. If the two teams managed to gain a lap, the Belgians would move into second place but still trail the Dutch-German constellation by a lap. Therefore, as the two teams bridged across, Van Hoecke immediately went on the offensive again and De Ketele, clearly the strongest rider in the bunch, created a tremendous gap in no time and soon the 2012 world Madison champions had taken the decisive lap.

“We had gathered enough points during the week, so we didn’t have to focus on the sprints and were able to go full-throttle”, said De Ketele. “Tactically, we did great.”

The win in Amsterdam is Van Hoecke’s first six-say victory ever. “It's very nice to take my first win here, as last year’s event was my first ever six-day. Unfortunately we didn’t win a single Six Day last season when we rode as world champions so it’s nice to win this one.”

In November the two Belgians will team up again for the Gent Six Day.

Track record

Tristan Marguet and Marc Hester put in a record-breaking performance in the two-lap trial. The Swiss-Danish combination won the event for the sixth day in a row and did so in a time of 21.495 seconds – a new track record as Swiss Marguet hurled himself around the track at blistering pace.

Final Result of the 6-Days in Amsterdam 2013:
1 Kenny de Ketele–Gijs van Hoecke (BEL), 282 p., 2 Leif Lampater (GER)–Raymond Kreder (NED), 245 p.,at 1 lap: 3 Jens Mouris–Wim Stroetinga (NED), 255 p., 4 Pim Ligthart (NED)–Marcel Kalz (GER), 226 p., at 3 laps: 5 Nick Stöpler–Yoeri Havik (NED), 243 p., at 7 laps: 6 Tristan Marguet (SUI)–Marc Hester (DEN), 194 p., at 8 laps: 7 Barry Markus (NED)–Robert Bartko (GER), 44 p., at 11 laps: 8 Jiri Hochmann–Vojtech Hacecky (CZE), 135 p., at 12 laps: 9  Melvin Boskamp–Jesper Asselman (NED), 134 p., at 15 laps: 10 Wesley Kreder (NED)–Nolan Hoffmann (RSA), 114 p., at 18 laps: 11 Aaron Gate (NZL)–Luke Roberts (AUS), 92 p., at 21 laps: 12 Didier Caspers–Melvin van Zijl (NED), 33 p., at 27 laps: 13 Guy East–Daniel Holloway (USA), 33 p.