The Six Days of Berlin is a six-day track cycling race held annually in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The event was first held in 1909. In its first edition, 15 teams of two cyclists each competed in the exhibition hall at Berlin Zoo for glory and, not least, 5000 Goldmarks.

Klaus Bugdahl Klaus Bugdahl (born 24 November 1934) is a retired German cyclist who was active between 1954 and 1978 both on the road and track. He won the German National Road Race in 1958. On track, he won several medals at European championships, mostly in ...

holds the record of victories with nine. The time when the 6 day race is held is sometimes just in the middle of the football season, the winter is severe, and football league in Germany had rather long winter break. In the past

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

was suspended from mid December to mid February. Therefore, 6-day races were considered major entertainment events at that time ( handball was to some extent). In particular, the Berlin 6-day race, which has reached the 100th race at the 2011 competition, still has a large audience, and in the heyday it was held twice a season. Due to the race format declines in popularity and

Global financial crisis in 2009 On the evening of January 18, the Danish Parliament agreed to a financial package worth 100 billion Danish kroner (17.6 billion USD). In response, markets panicked yet again. On January 22, the editorial board of ''The Christian Science Monitor'' ...

, Six Days of Dortmund, Stuttgart and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

folded successively. Another surviving 6 day cycling in Germany is Six Days of Bremen. Starting from 2017, 6 Days of Berlin was incorporated into the

Six Day Series The Six Day Series or Six Day Cycling Series is an annual series of track cycling events run by Madison Sports Group featuring world class cyclists. The series, organised for the first time in the 2016–17 season, was formed to develop an elite ...

organized by Madison Sports Group in attempting to rejuvenate the race format.

Winners

References

External links

Six Day Berlin
* {{Six-day racing Cycle races in Germany Sports competitions in Berlin Six-day races Recurring sporting events established in 1909 1909 establishments in Germany Six Day Series