Several dozen riders in colorful jerseys, some lined up below the track, some up in the corners: a six-day race often looks like a mess. But even if you did not know the rules: In the sixties and seventies it was easy to see for the inexperienced eye who the boss was on the track. Because there was this man with the elegant driving style, the patron of the field, the phenomenon, as his colleagues called him.

"Patrick Sercu just mastered everything, he was a gifted racing driver," says Christian Stoll DER SPIEGEL. For years, Stoll was hall speaker at various six-day races in Germany. He has known Sercu for more than 25 years. "He was a cycling giant, a role model as an athlete, as a manager, as a human."

Sercu was one of the most successful sprinters in the international cycling scene. He was three times world champion, 1964 he won at the age of 20 years Olympic gold in the 1000-meter time trial in Tokyo. The fact that his name still causes admiration 35 years after his last race in the scene, but is mainly due to his career on the six-day track.

Patrick Sercu and Eddy Merckx - a special partnership

Sercu contested 223 six-day races, winning 88 of them. But this number makes him the undisputed emperor on the winter track. Danny Clark, number two in the eternal ranking, came up with 74 victories. Sizes such as Rudi Altig, René Pijnen or Francesco Moser were his partners on the wooden oval. Most victories, however, experienced Sercu with cycling legend Eddy Merckx, with whom he had a lifelong friendship.

"Our band goes very far back, that's a big loss for me," Merckx told Belgian sports channel Sporza: "He was a fantastic guy." On the track, the friends complemented each other perfectly. Sercu, the elegant driver with the speed, and Merckx, the Bolzer, who brought stamina and power into this duo, which drove in this way since 1965 to 15 victories. "We were a good couple, but Patrick was definitely the better track cyclist," Merckx said. He also points to Sercu's achievements on the road, including 13 stage wins at the Giro d'Italia and six at the Tour de France.

His most successful road season graduated from Sercu in 1974, when he won both stages in the Giro and the Tour and came in the Green jersey as the best points driver to Paris. He also won the Brussels-Ingooigem one-day race that year and finished second at the Omloop Het Volk. However, Merckx believes that these achievements simply went down a bit in the wedding of the Belgian street stars.

That it never came to a big breakthrough on the road, but was probably also due to the lack of recovery times given his stint on the winter track. Up to 20 stations counted the six-day circus in those years, a day break was more common than exception, the race days were 16 hours twice as long as today. Sercu said he would treat himself to a maximum of 14 days a year. Why is he doing this? Because otherwise he would not have known what he should do in winter. Entry fees and bonuses were of course also good reasons.

Always demands maximum performance

The fact that no one can compare with Sercu today, that so many companions mourn the loss of a friend, a mentor, a role model, is also due to the character of the cycling star and his attitude towards the sport: "Patrick knew what he had done 'He did not have to fancy it,' says Stoll.

Whether by yourself, as a national coach, team manager or sporting director of various six-day races, Sercu has always demanded maximum commitment: "Only those who have the willingness to always retrieve top performances, has earned his respect." Someone who sloppily handled his talent infuriated him. Funnels like Willy de Bosscher, who occasionally drove over the oval to the amusement of the audience, were not able to win anything. Sercu wanted to entertain the audience through performance, thrilling races, exciting duels. "What he did not like at all as a sports director was when races were won from the front, when after half a lap it was already clear who would win if nobody ever broke from behind to attack the top," says Stoll.

"He was a good man, he was honest, straight out and always ready to compromise, so I appreciated that, so I rode with him for so long," Merckx said. And Stoll added: "Patrick was not just an esthete on the bike, he was a gentleman through and through." Always elegant, never unshaven, the blue Peugeot always washed. And: "He drove, until it was no longer health, always a Merckx bike."

Patrick Sercu died at the age of 74 years.