What an emotional end for the first 6-Day event of the winter season! With just one night of racing to go, we have no less than three different teams battling it out, all of them on the same number of laps. Indeed at the end of the fith night at Amsterdam's "Velodrome" Scott McGrory and Matthew Gilmore managed to save their leadership only by a slim two-point margin over Switzerland’s “Alpine Express”, Marco Risi and Kurt Betschart. Winners of both the Team Elimination Race and the last Madison of the night, the Swiss veterans moved ahead of local heroes Robert Slippens and Danny Stam (although the Dutch pair had previously claimed the first chase) and got close to steal the leadership to the Aussie-Belgian duo.

Andreas Beikirch and Andreas Kappes could still be regarded as overall contenders too, although their task is very difficult: they are trailing one lap behind the three leading pairs, and their lower score is not of help either, such that they need to put at least two laps into all of their rivals in the final day.

Max van Heeswijk and Marty Nothstein had some more good performances on Friday: they won the Two-Man Time Trial (is it news ?), and the USPS rider also took a Derny Heat. Their score is the fifth best one, but as they are 12 laps down to the leaders, van Heeswijk and Nothstein are currently sitting in eight place overall only, still behind Holland’s Pronk brothers. As for Bradley Wiggins and Robert Hayles, on Friday the Brits won the Sprints Race and moved up one place into ninth overall.