Gent Six Day: Wiggins and Cavendish claim overall in thrilling Madison finale

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In a performance reminiscent of their World Championship-winning Madison, Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish took out the overall Gent Six Day by stealing a lap in the closing minutes of the event's final chase.

The British duo went into the last race, an hour-long Madison, too far down on points to be able to overtake leader Kenny De Ketele and Moreno De Pauw, and sat third behind Olympic champion Elia Viviani and his partner Iljo Keisse.

A flurry of attacks popped off the front, and each time the Madison world champions took a lap, they were answered by their rivals. Eight times the top three teams lapped the field, and looked to be locked into position heading into the final minutes, with De Ketele and De Pauw holding a slight lead over Viviani and Keisse on points.

But with the laps ticking down, Wiggins made the move that would propel his team around the field, being declared lap leaders with just five short 167m laps to go.

There was no time for the other teams to respond, and the Britons, despite being a full 65 points in arrears, won the overall thanks to that single attack.

"It's been nine years since I was last here, 13 years since I won with Matthew Gilmore and 18 since I first came here as a 19-year-old boy," Wiggins said. "I was sat in this cabin down here with my father in 1981 and I feel like, 'I was born here and this has always been a second home to me'.

"It is always special to win here and I always said my final send-off would be to come here and race Ghent once last time, and to win it with Mark as well, after everything we have been through for the last 10 years together."

For Cavendish, it was the first time he would have his name inked on the history of 't Kuipke, and he  was thrilled. "Gent Six Day is a race you dream of as a kid; it's one you watch growing up. It's one you just dream of riding, let alone getting close.

"It's a nice bookend to everything and it's pretty emotional. I think it's the first full-British pair, as world [Madison] champions [to win it]."

Although they came into the race with an under-form Elia Viviani, Keisse and the Olympic champion put in a good fight on the final day of racing, winning the first points race, the team elimination race, the supersprint and derny race, while De Ketele and De Pauw were quickest in both timed events and held onto a five point lead coming into the last Madison.

Wiggins and Cavendish were so far behind on points they knew they had to do something drastic to get a lap.

"They pushed us right to the end, we knew we couldn't match them in the sprints, because they've been so fast, so we just took the risk and sat back and did what we did at the World Championships this year," Wiggins said.

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