The Ghent 6
The UIV Cup – Memorial Foré
Day three and four have changed a bit the situation at the top. We see the Swiss guys getting better every day and the Belgians Deweer-Ligneel lost contact with the top together with the Italians Longo-Nicolo. Of course the Belgians had a valid excuse after the enormous crash on the second day.
Alex and Jackson could reduce damage to a minimum on the third night. The teams looked at each other the whole race, noone was able to take a lap, so it came all down to the points score. And that is a strong weapon for the Helvetians Imhof-Dillier. They won the final sprint and Jackson got second.
So after the third night three teams led the ranking, Carver-Law (53pts), Imhof-Dillier (47pts) and the strong Brits Mould-Yates (36pts). All the rest on one or more laps down.
In the meantime the French team crashed out as well, The field was down to nine teams.
Friday night, night number four, started with a 500m time trial. Once again our Aussies got second in a time of 29”01 only beaten by the Italian team Longo-Nicolo.Their time 28”91.
The following madison was a lot more exciting then the night before, also for the spectators. Right from the start teams tried to take that necessary lap advantage. But not one single team could take more then half a lap and got court again. However the Aussies tried hard at one stage, and it looked like it was going to work, but the Brits and Swiss brought Alex and Jackson back.
As we prepared for the third sprint, the worst thing that could happen in a madison, happened!
A moment of misjudgement in a handsling and Alex went down. The team was neutralised for a while. Normally when your partner is out, eather for mecanical problem or a crash the jury tells you to tune you race on another couple. You ride and rest like the others do. But this time the officials didn’t listen to a furious Aussie coach Tim Decker.
But that also meant that Jackson had to stay in the field. The young man had to stay 12 laps in the bunch without any moment of recovery, untill Alex came back on the track. On top of that the Brits used this moment to attack and poor Jackson was suffering to stay up with a chasing group.
From then on it was hard work for both Alex and Jackson, the favorites to win this six. The others couples realised that now the green and gold boys had problems. Especially Jackson was looking forward to the end of the race. The boys worked hard to stay up with the Swiss and kept the loss down to one lap.
Looking forward to saturdaynight, and i hope the boys can bring another great performance.
- Mould – Yates (48 pts)
- Imhof – Dillier (-1 lap / 71 pts)
- Carver – Law (-1 lap / 67 pts)
- Lander – Kreutzfeldt (-2 laps / 25 pts)
- Deweer - Ligneel (-5 laps / 23 pts)
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