In a classic Six Day finale points shoot-out with the result not confirmed until the finish line, classy Home Boy Michael Mørkøv paired with the current Capo of the Six Day boards, Belgium’s Kenny De Ketele to land his seventh Copenhagen Six Day at midnight on Tuesday on the wide boards of the 250 metre Ballerup track.
Runners up were De Ketele’s usual henchman, the skinny-but-rapid Belgian Moreno De Pauw paired this time with Dutch greyhound Yoeri Havik, who finished on the same lap as the men in the legendary ‘Danish flag’ number seven jersey but were out-gunned in those OK Corral final 50 laps.
Third, in the black number nine jerseys, usually ridden by the second string Danish pairing were past winners here, Dane Marc Hester and German stalwart Leif Lampater.
We had them down for second spot but the Monday night 75 K handicap madison went disastrously wrong for them and they went into the last chase with a monstrous lap deficit.
In the final chase they were happy to nurse their slim points advantage over Poles Wojciech Pszczolarski – already a European Champion in the points race – and his partner Daniel Staniszewski; rapid and one to watch for the future.
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Day Four
I’m getting rather fond of my cold showers, they save an age in the ‘getting round to feeling human’ stakes.
And the Boss has been producing cordon bleu omelettes for breakfast – lovely.
Michael Mørkøv’s former Six Day partner, Alex Rasmussen got up on the boards for the rolling presentation, filming proceedings all the while, of course.
We were ‘sans Nico’ again today, that chest infection still giving him grief.
Sunday is always a tad more relaxed and we were treated to a pursuit match on those daft “walker” bikes between teams seven and nine.
Michael and Kenny won – naturally.
Dernys, time trial, longest lap and then the balustrade…
With Meco’s disco version of, ‘The Theme From Star Wars‘ at max volume, an ‘Imperial Stormtrooper’ lead the string round the top of the track – good fun.
Strange, but we couldn’t see Daniel Holloway anywhere in the string behind the trooper…
I can’t remember who won the chase [it was Lampater/Hester from De Vylder/Ghys – Ed.] but the tunes were great; Alcazar, ‘Crying At The Discotheque,’ Sylvester’s ‘Mighty Real‘ re-mix and my new ‘EuroCheese’ fave, Mystic’s ‘Ritmo de la Noche‘ – bellissimma!
Unlike the speaker in Berlin they realise here that you don’t have to talk all the time’ just let the music accompany the rolling thunder of rock-hard tubulars.
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Day Five
There was just one game in town on Monday night, the famous 75 kilometre handicap madison with the leaders ‘giving away’ seven laps to the limit men.
Laps gained and lost count overall so the big teams can’t mess around and for the little teams there’s a chance to make history.
But first, a story; back in 2010 in the closing stages of the race it looked like the US pairing of Daniel Holloway and Colby Pearce had it won.
But then Danny Stam ended the dream with two words spoken to Colby; ‘we win!‘
As minnows they could hardly argue with a barracuda like Danny.
Stam and partner Peter Schep were both Six Day winners, a handicap win meant little to their palmarès but it would have been a great result for the Americans.
Fast forward to Monday evening and as we come into the closing laps our boy Hans Pirius and aforementioned Daniel are leading.
