Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper described it as "the bike exchange of the year. And indeed, as Lemko Evenpoel was riding solo to almost secure his second Olympic gold medal in the men's road race, he suffered a flat tire with just over 3 km to go.

But even as Evenpoel set his bike on the side of the road and tried to shout "bike, bike, bike" for help, help was at hand, courtesy of the Belgian team car and especially his mechanic, Kurt Roos.

Ruth, a member of Evenpole's Sourdal Quickstep team, jumped out of his car and ran to Evenpole with a replacement bike.

The crisis was averted, but as an experienced mechanic later recounted, tension was already high in the Belgian team's car even before the flat tire.

The race commissaires took their time to get the cars to follow when Evenpoel attacked and opened up a gap of over a minute with 15km to go. And the incident on the road near the Louvre only added to the tension.

"Our team coach, Sven Van Torenhout, was at the wheel and said, 'Kurt, bike! ' he shouted at me," Ruth told Dernière Heure.

"The race commissaire refused to let me get behind Lemko until I was a minute behind.

"I jumped out of the car to grab Lemko's reserve bike.

"He was really stressed"-Evenpoel later commented that he had just seen a sign that he was only 25 seconds behind Valentin Maduas (France), who was closest, but was actually over a minute ahead-"and he was yelling at me to hurry," Ruth said.

"But that's normal, and I ended up winning my second gold medal in a week."

Ruth later commented that she kept her cool and pushed him as hard as she could to get him to restart.

"Panic is always a bad advisor. What we need to do is take action."

Ruth, who showed an impressive turn of speed as he pushed Evenpoel back to the best pace he could muster, later said, "My sprinting isn't bad for a 51-year-old, is it?"

"Sometimes I enjoy jogging, but right now I have a leg injury and I've put on a little weight, so I'm trying to cut back."

Injury or not, however, Ruth showed enough speed to make a timely assist to the Belgian team's star rider in the finale of the men's road race.

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