World Champions Michael Morkov and Lasse Norman Hansen are narrowly maintaining their lead of the Lotto Six Days of Flanders-Ghent after the fourth night. Kenny De Ketele and Robbe Ghys are hot on their heels.
It was Kenny De Ketele who grabbed ten points in the first points race. In the second points race, Tuur Dens proved himself stronger than the rest. The full Kuipke got to witness a brilliant match race in the team elimination between Jonas Rickaert and Kenny De Ketele. In the end, the former was the strongest. In the track lap, Michael Morkov together with Lasse Norman Hansen once again turned out to be the fastest of them all.
What followed next was the Memorial Patrick Sercu, a Madison over one hour. Four teams, Morkov/Hansen, De Ketele/Ghys, De Buyst/Kluge and Keisse/Cavendish, were able to start this event in the same lap and the game was on straight away. De Ketele and Ghys even did two laps in one go from the outset. At 30 laps from the finish, the Belgian tandem went on the attack again. The Danish World Champions, Morkov and Hansen, went on the counter attack. In the last two laps, they managed to take back a lap from De Ketele/Ghys. However, the latter did take the win and the corresponding 20 points. Thanks to the powerful closing 500 metres, the Danes managed to keep their leader’s position after day four.
Just before the first series of Derny races of the evening, the organisers of the Six Days of Ghent insisted on honouring Michel Vaarten. The former National Team Coach Track Cycling rode around on the Derny in the Kuipke for years but will always be remembered as the 19-year-old track cyclist who won the silver medal for the 1000 metres time trial at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. Ten years later, Vaarten grabbed the bronze medal in the points race at the World Championships. At those same World Championships, he was the strongest in the Keirin and won the gold medal.
