Stroetinga and Havik claim narrowest of leads at Six Day Berlin

The Dutch pair are level on laps, and points, with Belgians Moreno de Pauw and Kenny de Ketele, but lead by virtue of winning the final 45-minute Madison chase.

British duo Chris Latham and Andy Tennant finished fifth in the Madison and sit in third overall with 164 points, just two behind the Dutch and Belgian teams.

Day Two started with a 30-minute Madison chase with Australians Tirian McManus and Josh Harrison taking a lap before the first ten minutes were up.

Jesper Morkov and Jens Mouris – working with teammate Pim Ligthart – both launched their own attacks to try and claw a lap back for their teams, but no-one could manage it – despite Tristan Marguet and Claudio Imhoff giving it a go with seven minutes to go – and the win went to the Aussies.

Morkov did see some success in the next race though, but he was no match for Benjamin Thomas, who took a comfortable 40-lap Derny win ahead of Stroetinga, with the Dane in third.

Latham failed to finish that Derny heat, but he made up for it in fine style on his next venture to the track, taking a second consecutive Longest Lap win, ahead of Marc Hester.

Alex Rasmussen and Jesper Pedersen then combined perfectly to win their 500m Madison time trial heat, setting a time of 26.625s.

The time was not only good enough to win the heat ahead of Havik and Stroetinga, but put them into the overall lead with eight of the 16 teams now having completed their effort.

Berlin's faithful home crowd had been made to wait for a first Six Day win of the night, and had just seen the Danes knock Leif Lampater and Marcel Kalz off the top of the 500m Madison TT leaderboard, but they were soon appeased when Maximilian Beyer sprinted to team elimination race victory, ahead of de Pauw, with Latham coming in third.

The scratch race then saw a repeat of Day One, with Marguet sprinting away to take victory on the final lap, just like teammate Claudio Imhoff had done the night before.

And the German crowd had more to shout about in the second Derny heat as Leif Lampater sauntered to a comfortable victory – setting up a nail-biting final 45-minute Madison.

Mouris and Ligthart went into the showdown with a lap on the rest of the field, but after a high-tempo encounter in which many tried, and failed, to get away from the field, the Dutch pair lost out to their countrymen.

Six teams eventually gained a lap on the field as the pace became too much and the peloton allowed Havik and Stroetinga, as well as the Belgian and British pairings, plus Ligthart and Mouris, Imhofff and Marguet and Nico Hesslich and Achim Burkart to get away.

It then all came down to the final sprint, with Marguet launching a long one with two laps remaining, and it looked like they might make it with Imhoff leading into the final bend, but de Pauw and Stroetinga were too strong in the final straight.

In the sprinter's competition there was an element of history repeating itself as Maximilian Levy once again set the fastest flying 250m time trial time.

He clocked 12.959s, with Robert Forstemann in second with 12.997s, setting up another sprint final between the multiple world champions.

And it was once again Forstermann that prevailed in the final, with Tomas Babek beating Joachim Eilers in their battle for third and fourth, while Philip Hindes won the C final to take fifth, ahead of Rene Enders and Nate Koch.

But Enders got the better of everyone in the final sprinters event of the night, taking an exhilarating keirin win ahead of Eilers, with Levy in third and Babek in fourth.

That meant that Forstemann could only manage fifth, with Levy taking the overall lead as a result.

The night had opened with more British success in the U23 Talent Cup as Matt Bostock and Joe Holt – overall winners at Six Day Amsterdam – beat yesterday's winners Ethan Hayter and Matt Walls into second place, but the latter Brits still lead overall with just Saturday's Madison left to race.

While Stefan Schafer took the win in the ‘Stayer' Derny race to close proceedings.

Sportsbeat 2017