De Ketele's crash cruels Belgian's chance to defend madison title

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The Belgian pairing of Kenny De Ketele and Gijs Van Hoecke were unsuccessful in their attempt to defend their 2012 World Madison crown at the 2013 UCI Track World Championships in Minsk. While they eventually finished in eighth place, De Ketele was lucky to escape serious injury, somersaulting over his handlebars a little over 12 minutes into the 200-lap event.

It was the French pairing of Vivien Brisse and Morgan Kneisky who triumphed, with three sprint wins aiding them to a three-point win over Spaniards David Muntaner Juaneda and Albert Torres Barcelo.

Van Hoecke was not using the incident as an excuse for the loss however, saying on twitter: "The rainbow jersey is not ours anymore. Too bad, but we were not good enough.

"But we still had a great year," he continued.

De Ketele came unstuck when a Kazakhstan rider moving up the track ahead of him clipped his front wheel on the back straight. The 27-year-old was left reeling on the edge of the track, with a considerable hole in the back of his knicks.

He later tweeted an image of the crash, with his legs at 90 degrees the wrong way to the track, explaining that: "At this point I realised I was not going to make it without crashing."

De Ketele and Van Hoecke went on to take minor points in two sprints, but it was not enough to take it to the three-pronged attack from France, Spain and Germany in the second half of the race.