Racing at the opening day of the Six Days of Ghent meeting had to be temporarily suspended yesterday – after a cat got onto the track, narrowly avoiding getting hit by the riders. The incident was caught on camera by a spectator at the Belgian city’s 't Kuipke velodrome.

It’s unclear whether someone brought the animal into the venue or it made its own way inside.

But after it leapt from the stands onto the track, it certainly used up one of its nine lives as riders including Mark Cavendish sped past and the announcer called for racing to stop.

The cat – a Burmese, we think, going by these pictures on Dutch website NUSport – swiftly realised the danger it was in and got off the track sharpish, jumping back into the stand where it was eventually scooped up by a spectator.