Omer De Bruycker

De Bruycker was one of the world's best team racers in the 1930s. Together with his friend and fellow countryman Fred Haemerlinck, he was virtually unbeatable in the couple stages. In his nomadic professional life, De Bruycker won more than 300 track races and nine six-day races.^[3] When in 1947 he formed a couple with Rik Van Steenbergen, eighteen years his junior, in a home match on the open-air track in Zelzate, fate struck. In a spectacular fall, he suffered a double skull fracture. After months of rehabilitation, the doctor forbade him to participate in competitive sports. De Bruycker spent the rest of his active life as a taxi driver.^[4]