eM_Pe

Robert Dowhan in an ex chairman of Falubaz and a current Polish MP. Falubaz alco confirmed it on their Twitter. It's much more official than we'd want it to be...

You don't want to know. Still hoping it's not true!

Finland not scoring at all is the key for GB to go through. The scores suggest no double points have been used so far. Going above 29 should be simple then, all that's left is keeping Germany behind.

Opole results: 1. Poland 55 2. Czech Republic 29 3. Russia 24 4. Sweden 20 The Poles were close to perfection winning 16 out of the 20 heats (Piotr Pawlicki was unbeaten in 5 rides). This, together with the other 3 teams being quite close to each other, opened the gates quite wide for the Brits. Coming 2nd with at least 30 points should be achievable.

I don't always see speedway being mentioned on the main BBC Sports website but when I do, it's a live radio coverage of a National League Speedway meeting at the Perry Barr Stadium.

How on Earth was Hancock not disqualified? It's just unbelievable that a rider can do such a thing with no consequences!

Congrats to all the finalists. Wonderful show and I'm really glad everybody has finished it unhurt. Great job by the young Poles. Having lost the top 2 riders due to injuries, we still come out as medallists. Really looking forward to next year!

Clear exclusion for Linus here, right?

I's sorry to say that but this utopian vision is strongly false. In most Polish speedway cities kids must rely on their parents' money to practice. Yes, some clubs are helping them quite a bit (say, Leszno), but some of the others are not friendly at all. Torun is a funny example because they have plenty of kids doing mini-speedway, but once they grow and pass the "riding competence" test, they usually get forgotten and vanish. Pawel Przedpelski who comes from Torun is now one of the top junior riders in the world but his beginnings weren't as you'd expect. Due to other riders' injuries he was forced to ride for their team and, to everybody's surprise, once given a good bike he started scoring like mad. We seem not to have the issue with noise in the neighbourhoods that's harming some British tracks. But don't be silly. It's not that kids just show up at the track and take a top class bike without any supervision or medical care. And speedway equipment costs the same, whether you're Polish or British, and the average Polish gross salary of £680 is much below what you need to practice this sport. So yes, the clubs are trying to help these kids. But don't think that an anonymous boy could just one day show up at the track and have everything handed to him on a silver plate.

I'd say it's mostly due to the lack of any decent opposition. There was essentially nobody that the GB's weaker links could loose points to. Some form of comparison could be the duels against Hancock, where we get Greg vs Poland 1:5 and Greg vs GB 4:2. Still, Tai was just out of this world and he's on the best possible course for his second World Championship. And Lambert was excellent. Even more so since he had a 7 heats gap in the middle of the meeting and came back in huge style winning heat 14.

This is insane. INSANE. Should Poland just quit the meeting or treat it like Russia to make some people happy?

Here's something that every speedway fan in the world wants to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37p-JBS57D4. TOMASZ GOLLOB!

Apart from the rather expensive VIP pack (£53), the tickets were a bit cheaper than the average Extraleague ones (between £4 and £8). And there was a special £4 ticket for the fans who presented a ticket to the Warsaw SGP disaster.

It's a shame for the Stars to lose the battle for bronze at the very last minute. But WSL is still in its initial stage, fighting for the fans' appreciation. And King's Lynn definitely gave us a lot to enjoy which I find much more important at the current stage. And showed us this true Knight that Lambert is! I personally loved to watch him fighting for position against much more experienced riders and showing them how much a fighting spirit and a bit of brains on the track are worth. There were multiple calls from the commentators (one of them was Tomasz Bajerski, you guys remember him? ) that this rising star should be given a chance in PLŻ2 (the 3rd level) or even Nice PLŻ (the 2nd level) some time this season.

Apparently they can if they are 6 points behind the leaders. But it's not a double-points Joker-thingy. That's what I think they said at the beginning of the meeting.

WHAT A RACE! Lambert! This guy is really 17?!

You can use http://www.sportowefakty.pl/zuzel/wydarzenie/35232. Also, the stream I posted above seems to be working!

I'm watching http://sport.tvp.pl/19727452/zuzel-liga-mistrzow-gorzow-wielkopolski from the UK and it seems to be working so far... But the actual coverage only starts in 10 minutes. Fingers crossed!

It's "Lubię ten tor." "Utwór" is also a track, but the one you find on a music CD

They cancelled the meeting! (according to SportoweFakty.pl)

Apparently the riders are not willing to race any more and the jury is threatening them with serious penalties... But it's all unofficial. Polish TV doesn't say much more than you know already.

I'm happy to tell you that Emil is on Polish TV now and he repeated a few times his strong desire to come back to GP. He wants to race in the qualifiers this year.

You can make your own assessment of these outrageous track contitions watching these two videos showing "heats" 2 and 4 of today's match: and .

I hope this is the right place for such a topic. I'm a speedway fan from Poland currently living in Cambridge. I was wondering if there were any fans around who might occasionally have an empty seat in their cars driving to Peterborough or King's Lynn (or others) for some Elite League speedway... Another nice occasion to meet would be watching SGP somewhere in town (if it's actually shown anywhere). Thanks in advance for any useful feedback!

Thanks startline sid, I shall have a look at Rye House too! It's indeed a pretty convenient place to get to.