Gent Six Days 2011 – Night Five

We used to get to park the camper inside the old exhibition hall which adjoins the velodrome – but ‘safety’ means we have to park outside, adjacent to the old hall, for our work at the Gent Six Days 2011.

In the morning it means you have a long walk to the shower, previously you could lurch the 10 metres, zombie-like, to the shower cubicle and be reborn.

But I opted to stumble down to the paper shop to get the ‘Gentenaar‘ – it’s one of my sad rituals to buy l’Equipe and the Gazzetta at the Tour and Giro every day, and I do it in Gent, too.

Some of the sixes aren’t particularly well served by the local press, but in bike mad Flanders the Gentenaar rarely disappoints.

My shower was a life changing experience but I couldn’t understand why I could hear the Dernys up on the boards, early on a Saturday.

Phil and Jurgen was the reason – lapping away behind the buzzing little horrors in preparation for their evening pursuit match.

Gilbert is a nice man and no Diva, but after their training was over it was apparent he’s the Boss; Roelandts kept quietly in background with a little smile on his face – no doubt thinking of the Euro-stuffed envelope coming his way that night.

I got some time on the ‘net in the afternoon to catch up with world happenings in cycling.

I saw on Sporza that Nys won at Koksijde, but Pauwels wasn’t too chuffed about old Sven’s line in the finish sprint and was pretty vocal about it.

Martin, Gill, John Anderson, Brian Dempster and Dave Martin all went up to the coast to watch it.I wished I had too, but there’s none of that R & R stuff for runners – especially at ‘t Kuipke.

Pauwels gub was firmly shut the next day at Gieten, when Sven nailed him fair and square.

My heart would love Sven to wear the rainbow jersey again – but my head says ‘Stybar.’

But it was soon time for the UiV cup – that’s the U23 race.

The GB lads Owain Doull and Simon Yates had it pretty well sewn up.

GB has done well in the U23 with Carver/Law winning in ’08 and Kennaugh/Blythe in ’07.

Maurice Burton should have won in ’75 but his partner sold it – it was like that back then.

The pro chases seemed very ‘flat’ to me – or maybe I have on rose tinted specs for the ‘good old days’ with Sercu, Merckx, De Wilde, Risi, and Keisse?

But a sure sign is that there was ne’er a mention of lap or track records in any event.

As entertainment it was good, the colour, speed, the sights, sounds, smells all make for an assault on the senses – especially if you’ve had a few beers.

But if you’ve seen madison racing at it’s best – then you had to be disappointed by the chases.

Scottish six day fan Stuart Anthony was over and his take was more positive than mine;

“Kneisky/Hester looked great.

“Jesper Mørkøv will be as good as his big brother.

“Dillier and Imhof looked as strong as a couple of bears; they were good in Berlin when finding their feet last year.

“Bengsch is a big strong boy who goes well in Berlin but to be fair he probably toiled on a short track like Gent.”

All fair comment, so maybe I’ve been spending too much time with Vik?

Bed at 03:00 am again – ugghh!

Gent Six Days - Results from Night Five