Stroetinga's sprint extends his and Havik's Six Day Berlin lead

The Dutchman outsprinted Tristan Marguet and Moreno de Pauw to win the final 45-minute Madison on Day 2, and produced an even more remarkable finish overtake Hans Pirius in the final straight having seemed too far back at the bell.

Stroetinga's sprint puts he and partner Yoeri Havik a lap ahead of the field at the halfway stage in Germany, having been one of just three teams to take a lap in the final 30-minute chase.

The night started with a longer, 45-minute, chase, and after four teams took a lap, it was Chris Latham that led the field over the line, but the win went to the Danish duo of Jesper Morkov and Marc Hester.

"It is very hard, it always is, no matter if you won or lost it is always a hard race," said Hester.

"Today was our day, we were lucky and we are happy."

Action then switched to the first of the night's 40-lap Derny heats, with Tristan Marguet edging out Kenny de Ketele to take the win, with Morgan Kneisky in third, Havik fourth and Andy Tennant fifth.

And de Ketele and de Pauw racked up some more points in their 500m Madison time trial heat, setting a time of 26.746s to win on the night, but it was not enough to depose Casper Pedersen and Alex Rasmussen from the overall hot seat, with just four more pairings left to ride the event.

There was more success for Marguet and his partner Claudio Imhoff in the team elimination race, as he outsprinted Achim Burkart to take team elimination victory, with Havik and Stroetinga in third and the Belgians in fourth.

Morkov and Hester recorded their second win of the night in the 20-lap scratch race, beating their countrymen Pedersen and Rasmussen by a wheel rim to prevail in the scratch race.

And there was confusion in the longest lap, when the riders reacted to a whistle in the crowd, rather than the starting pistol, to treat the crowd to a preview of the real thing.

Latham won the false start race, before being beaten to the line by Maximilian Beyer in the real thing, but still scoring vital points over their Dutch and Belgian rivals and going into the overall lead.

Andreas Graf then won the second Derny heat of the night, coasting away from Christian Grasmann for a comfortable victory, before all eyes turned to the final chase.

Benjamin Thomas and Kneisky took an early lap, with Havik and Stroetinga then taking one of their own, before Dominic Weinstein and Pirius also got in on the act.

De Ketele and de Pauw tried to escape, but the pack would not let them, and with three laps to go Weinstein and Pirius launched an attack for the line.

And it looked to have worked, but Stroetinga had other ideas and appeared from nowhere in the home straight to take a valuable victory.

In the sprinters event it was once again Maximilian Levy who set the fastest 250m flying lap time, clocking 12.640 – his fastest of the week. Robert Forstemann finished second with Tomas Babek third and Philip Hindes fourth.

So the C final saw Joachim Eilers face off against Rene Enders and Nate Koch, and it was Enders who took a narrow win over Koch, with Eilers nowhere to be seen.

The B final was taken by Babek, getting the better of double Olympic champion Hindes, but the best was saved for last as Levy and Forstemann faced off for the third night running.

And it was Levy who, after a two-minute track stand as neither sprinter gave an inch, got the better of his more senior compatriot to extend his overall lead in the sprinter standings.

Eilers finally got his first win of the week, taking the final keirin at a canter, but it was Levy in second who again stated his dominance in the sprint competition.

Earlier in the evening Ethan Hayter and Matt Walls took their second U23 Talent Cup Madison win of the week, and the night's action concluded with Franz Schiewer taking the Day 3 'Stayer' Derny race.

Sportsbeat 2017