Olympic Omnium champion Benjamin Thomas and bronze medalist Fabio Van den Bossche charged to the victory in the 66th edition of the Gent Six Day on Sunday, launching a late attack to steal a lap in ‘t Kuipke.
Lindsay De Vylder and Robbe Ghys led the Six Day from the first night and headed into the final Madison with a 44-point lead over Thomas and Van den Bossche.
However, there were two other teams on the same lap: Jules Hesters and Aaron Gate, who were nine points further down in third and Madison World Champions Roger Kluge and Theo Reinhardt in fourth.
While Hesters launched an attack to try to take a lap late in the final Madison, Thomas and Van den Bossche were the ones who profited. They sat back and let De Vylder and Ghys do the chasing and then launched a devastating final blow when Hesters was reeled in.
“We were the hunters this week. Jules (Hesters) rode a heroic team race and put a lot of pressure on the leaders,” Thomas said. “We took advantage of that. We knew we had a bullet and we had to use it at the right moment.”
The victory was a first for Fabio Van den Bossche, who said the team always kept some energy in reserve until the final race.
“Today we tried to play out that Lindsay and Robbe as leaders had to control three duos. We waited and looked for the right moment. We succeeded,” Van den Bossche said.
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“It’s impressive how the winners still got a lap at the end. It was a very hard race, Ghys and De Vylder had to close everything,” Hesters said.
“Thomas took the lap with Van den Bossche that we couldn’t take. That was at the most difficult moment of the race. You could see that Thomas still had some left and he made the most of it.”
De Vylder gave credit to the winning team for coming out strong on the last day.
“We’ve been very dominant this week,” De Vylder said. “But the winners rode a fantastic final day. Over the whole week we were perhaps the strongest pair, [but] they were today.”
Results
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Rank
Team
Points
1
Benjamin Thomas (Fra) / Fabio Van den Bossche (Bel)
338
2 (+1 lap)
Lindsay De Vylder (Bel) / Robbe Ghys (Bel)
370
3
Jules Hesters (Bel) / Aaron Gate (NZl)
317
4 (+2 laps)
Roger Kluge (Ger) / Theo Reinhardt (Ger)
134
5 (+15 laps)
Mark Stewart (GBr) / Philip Heijnen (Ned)
150
6 (+19 laps)
Jan-Willem van Schip (Ned) / Yanne Dorenbos (Ned)
169
7 (+33 laps)
Oscar Nilsson-Julien (Fra) / Valentin Tablion (Fra)
