The mythical Gent Six Day monitor match begins on Tuesday, November 14, with protecting name holders Lindsay De Vylder and Robbe Ghys having a look to move back-to-back in opposition to Madison Global Champions, Yoeri Havik and Jan-Willem van Schip.
Belgian famous person Lotte Kopecky may also be in motion all through the ladies’s pageant on the weekend.
Ghys and De Vylder led the early levels of the Madison on the contemporary Glasgow Worlds, prior to shedding the result in the Dutch duo and falling utterly out of the medals amidst the chaos of the 20 th and ultimate dash, which was once clearly tricky to take.
“3 months later, the Global Championships are nonetheless like an open wound for me,” stated De Vylder. “The war of words goes to harm, however they deserve it. I’m at peace with the truth that they gained. It’s principally my very own loss that bothers me.”
“It’s extra like a double leg destroy. I smartly up simply fascinated about it. You’ll be able to’t forget about that one thing like that can harm. Till the penultimate dash, I believed we might be of their position,” agreed Ghys.
“However I’ve overwhelmed Global Champions up to now. In Gent, I will be able to do all I will to do this once more. It isn’t the similar as a Global name, however the Lotto Zesdaagse Vlaanderen-Ghent may be on the best of my listing of necessary races.”
A sold-out crowd will take within the 82nd version of the well-known monitor match, with its iconic 166m monitor a lot shorter than the traditional 250m tracks raced on on the Olympics. Mark Cavendish described it as a “wall of dying” in 2016 prior to he went directly to win the development with Bradley Wiggins.
It is going to be a unusual yr, alternatively, because the fabled forums at Gent’s ‘t Kuipke Velodrome gained’t see native legend and seven-time winner Iljo Keisse take the beginning after finishing his occupation on the match in 2022 and being topped ‘Emperor of ‘t Kuipke’.
Around the six days of racing, 12 males’s pairs will combat it out for the full name, with monitor stars littered all over the lineup. Two-time Madison Global Champion-winning pair Roger Kluge and Theo Reinhardt will lead the German price, whilst the Madison silver medallists from Glasgow Mark Stewart and Oliver Wooden, may also be provide.
Kopecky will headline the development as a global champion at the highway and in two monitor occasions – the Issues Race and Removing Race.
She’s had a hectic low season amassing awards on the Kristallen Fiets and Flandrian Awards Gala for her improbable 2023 marketing campaign which noticed her dominate the largest one-day races and big name on the Excursion de France Femmes.
Maximum lately, she was once on the Koersmuseum in Roselaere the place her highway race Global Championship triumph was once immortalised with a mural at the Koppenmuur. Kopecky is in excellent corporate with legends Rik Van Looy, Freddy Maertens, Benoni Beheyt and Yvonne Reynders some of the riders additionally at the wall.
She mixed the discuss with to the museum together with her coaching for the Gent Six Day and in spite of guffawing a couple of flat tyre sustained at the adventure to the museum, stated “This can be a nice honour to obtain a portrait right here, particularly amongst those icons.”
Gent Six Day will run from November 14 to 19 with males’s elite and males’s U23 races all over on a daily basis of pageant. The ladies’s racing is person and best on Friday and Saturday.