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.
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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'.
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