Six Days of Grenoble & Dortmund

France & Germany, Oct. 28 - Nov. 1, 1999

Night 1 - October 28

Six days of Grenoble

In Grenoble, four teams are on the same lap after the first night's races. Last year's winners Baffi and Collinelli are leading by 22 points. The other three pairs are within four points, so it will be an interesting fight for second. But of course, a lot of things can hapopen in the following five nights. The top challengers, Llaneras and Alzamora of Spain and Danes Piil and Sandstød are in the same lap as the leaders and so are Belgians Corvers and Lapage.

Sprinter's competition

The new French World Sprint Champion, Laurent Gané showed the world, or at least the crowd gathered at the Palais des Sports in Grenoble that he is a worthy champion. The jury played a certain part in his victory at the World's in Berlin, but here he won both events. First he won the 200 meters TT in 11.491 seconds with ex champ Florian Rosseau second in 11.661 and World's runner up Jens Fiedler in 11.741. The match sprint saw the same results. Felicia Ballanger won the women's sprint competition ahead of Magelie Fauré.

Results afer night 1:

1 Adriano Baffi (Ita) - Andrea Collinelli (Ita)		78
2 Juan Llaneras (Spa) - Miguel Alzamora (Spa) 		56
3 Jakob Piil (Den) - Michael Sandstød (Den) 		55
4 Frank Corvers (Bel) - Lorenzo Lapage (Bel) 		52

at 1 lap:

5 Robert Sassone (Fra) - Jean-Michel Teissier (Fra) 	51
6 Jens Lehmann (Ger) - Tayeb Braikia (Den) 		38

at 2 lap:

7 Andy Flickinger - Jérôme Neuville (Fra) 		47
8 Jean Michel Monin (Fra) - Carlos Da Cruz (Fra) 	31

at 3 laps:

9 Laurent Genty (Fra) - Francis Moreau (Fra) 		26
10 Robert Hayles (Gbr) - Franco Marvuli (Swi) 		20

at 4 laps:

11 Jacky Durand (Fra) - Pascal Chanteur (Fra) 		12

at 8 laps:

12 Lazlo Bodrogi (Hun) - Jean-Louis Bourgon (Fra) 	19

Mens sprint after 1 day:

1 Laurent Gané (Fra)          6 pts
2 Florian Rousseau (Fra)      5
3 Jens Fiedler (Ger)          4
4 Mickael Bourgain (Fra)      3
5 Arnaud Tournant (Fra)       2
6 Anthony Peden (Nzl)         1

Womens sprint after 1 day:

1 Felicia Ballanger (Fra)     4 pts
2 Magalie Faure (Fra)         3
3 Tanya Dubnicoff (Can)       2
4 Celine Nivert (Fra)         1

58th Six days of Dortmund

Although 5000 people came to the first night of the six day race in Dortmund, but most seats were empty, The crowd that came seemed to be as interested in the disco "Ballermann-Party" or the restaurants rather than the races.

Anyway, the cycling fans got an entertaining evening. It started with eliminations, where Swiss four-time winners Risi and Betschart disappeared quite early while the other stars had a better start. It ended with a final where Dortmund born Andreas Beikirch, paired with Dane Jimmi Madsen, narrowly beat Rolf Aldag who rides with Silvio Martinello. The derny race saw the opposite result.

The grand hour chase, highlight of the premiere evening, offered a good show with several attacks on the 200 meter track. Risi and Betschart gained a lap quite early and won the green jerseys for the first day.

The new Madison World Champion Galvez was without his World's partner Llaneras who was in Grenoble. He started with six day debutante Capilla Gonzalez, who had great problems in the chase, had a crash and the pair lost several rounds. After the chase there was a stayer race, won a little surprisingly, by Stefan Klare with Christian Dippel on the derny, ahead of Belgian Laurent de Paoli (with Schmadtke) and German Carsten Podlesch (behind Walrave).

Results after night 1:

1 Bruno Risi (Swi) - Kurt Betschart (Swi)             54 pts   

One lap behind:
2 Jimmi Madsen (Den) - Andreas Beikirch (Ger)         71    
3 Silvio Martinello (Ita) - Rolf Aldag (Ger)          52    
4 Robert Bartko (Ger) - Scott McGrory (Aus)           50    
5 Christian Lademann (Ger) - Stefan Steinweg (Ger)    38    
6 Juan Curuchet (Arg) - Gabriel Curuchet (Arg)        18    

Two laps behind:
7 Matthew Gilmore (Bel) - Etienne Dewilde (Bel)       19    
8 Andreas Kappes (Ger) - Olaf Pollack (Ger)           12    
9 Marco Villa (Ita) - Ronny Lauke (Ger)                9    

Three laps behind:
10 Lars Teutenberg (Ger) - Christian Weber (Swi)      22    
11 Frank Kowatschitsch (Ger) - Erik Weispfennig (Ger) 18    

Four laps behind:
12 Gerd Dörich (Ger) - Mario Vonhof (Ger)              2    

Five laps behind:
13 Alexander Fedenko (Ukr) - Vasyl Yakovlev (Ukr)      0    

Eight laps behind:
14 Isaac Galvez (Spa) - Capilla Gonzalez (Spa)         8