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TonyMac

Mauger Better Than Rickardsson?

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SCB of course YOU can't compare the two eras, being little more than a child you will never have seen Ivan race.

 

Those of us who did can compare. Of course it isnt a precise science, just opinions based on what we saw, not read in history books.

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Those of us who did can compare. Of course it isnt a precise science, just opinions based on what we saw, not read in history books.

 

That I can't argue with and I have not, try reading my posts. The people who have seen CAN compare but it's no good coming up with the naff arguement of stats on this one and thats comming from someone who lieks to use stats as much as possible.

 

BTW, I have seen videos :P

Edited by SCB

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I'm with SCB on this one.

 

I know you need to build in standard of opposition and if you saw the riders it helps because you can use that as an argument. If I wanted a totally honest opinion however I would rather it came from someone who had never seen any of the riders. I am a statto by the way!!! I truly believe that a completely unbiased look at the results is a most effective way of viewing this kind of thing which excludes all bias.

 

For me Kenny Carter is one of the all time greats but he never finished higher than 5th place in a world final - surely the best rider never to make a top 4 however you look at it??? I only know this from the fact that I saw him ride - and he was my favourite so I have to admit severe bias! I'm sure other people could come up with riders they say were better who never even made a final - did some Eastbourne fan just say Bobby Schwartz?

 

You can say Fundin, Craven, Moore and Briggs dominated because the opposition was made from the same riders each year who weren't good enough but you could also argue that with Knutsson, Nordin, Plechanov, McKinlay etc being so consistent it made up the toughest finals ever and to win 13 of 14 between 4 riders makes them the best lot ever.

 

Mauger came along when Fundin and Briggs were past it. What kind of opposition were people like Waloszek, Persson, Plech, Szczakiel and Woryna. Even the other 'greats' of the time like Michanek and Collins were only up there for 2 years and they had the beating of Mauger when there were. Olsen was hit and miss but when he was on form he beat Mauger by a mile with 15 point maximums - apart from the year Jessup should have won it!!! When Mauger and Olsen won from 77 to 79 a teenage kid in the shape of Michael Lee was matching them - talented or not they should have been too good for him. Counter argument is that speedway suddenly had a load of riders who were world class so it stopped a small group dominating for a decade at a time which makes Ivan even more special to have done so and nobody else got near him. With Fundin, Briggs, Moore and Craven nobody could stand out and dominate like Ivan did.

 

Bruce Penhall fell in a transition period where Mauger and Olsen had gone and before Gundersen and Nielsen came in so winning finals was easy surely?!? Second place went to Olsen (past it) in 81 and Les Collins (never made another world final) in 82 which hardly seems top quality in terms of world finals!!! How many other riders have raced in 3 finals and won two of them - Mauger and Fundin didn't win until their 3rd attempt!

 

No two riders have dominated like Nielsen and Gundersen and are you telling me Ermolenko, Pedersen, Knudsen, Josson and Wigg were not good opposition? Had Erik not been injured who knows what he could have done.

 

Rickardsson has had the GP's which make sure the top rider in the world is champion every year and until Crump came along who was realistically an decent challenger. Losing out to Mark Loram and Nicki Pedersen over a whole series doesn't make him look like the all time great to me? The other side says he won a one off final and the fact that GP's mean the best rider becomes champion says he definitely has every attribute to prove beyond doubt he is a truly dominant rider as opposed to being able to up his game for one big day each year!!!

 

There you have it - argue whichever way you will!!! I think you can only judge riders on their results and not the standard of opposition. If they are much better than everyone else that should go in their favour and not against them surely??? My own 'opinion' (I prefer fact to opinion but I can't seem to stop having them!) is that winning finals when the same riders are all up there and showing repeated and genuine world class standards is pretty damn impressive though so I can't even agree with myself.

 

One interesting, some may say geeky fact, is that if you exclude any other rider who won more than once to give each individual dominance at the time then the all time list looks like this...

 

Fundin & Briggs - 9

Nielsen - 8

Mauger - 7

Rickardsson - 6

R Moore - 5

Olsen, Gundersen, Craven, Knutsson, Ermolenko - 4

F Williams, J.O.Pedersen, Crump - 3

J Young, S Waterman, A Lawson, B Jansson, Michanek, P Collins, Penhall - 2

 

Potential winners who were stopped by the greats - Craig Boyce, Eric Williams (brother of Freddie), Tomasz Gollob, Brian Crutcher, Arthur Forrest, Wally Green, Sverre Harrfeldt, Edward Jancarz, Gordon Kennett, Lance King, Tommy Knudsen, Les Collins, Jimmy Nilsen, Olle Nygren, Bob Oakley, Peter Moore, Bernt Persson, Zenon Plech, Igor Plechanov, Soren Sjosten, Pawel Waloszek and Simon Wigg!

 

For those of you that have read the whole essay - sorry and thanks!

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I think you can only judge riders on their results and not the standard of opposition.

 

hehe ... Ivan Mauger it is then :D

6 individual titles 3 runner up

3 longtrack titles 2 runner up

4 world cup winning medals

2 world pairs winner medals

4 x European Champion

1 x Intercontinental Champion

4 x British Champion

 

MBE OBE

Man of the Millennium

 

etc etc etc

 

 

and i still think Kenny Carter was my favourite rider ... too many times having to give your bed up to Ivan knocks just a little bit of the shine off

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Yes, and let's not forget he also lost to the great Jerzy Szczakiel...

 

Only kidding, Steve... :wink:

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hey, Szczakiel was a superstar (well for one meeting he was anyway ... think he was booed off the track in the WTC)

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This has been a great debate, for me though it goes like this. The 3 greatest riders of all time are Mauger Fundin and Nielsen, in that order. No one has mentioned how much more difficult it was for Mauger in 1968/69/70 when qualifying meetings and finals were held on tracks prepared differently, not raced on regularly, and given to the locals (Rusians and Poles) ahead of time for practise. At that time Ivan did not have any mechanical advntage, everyone was riding the same machine, all he had was determination, guts and an extraordinary ability at the starting gate. Ivans level of dominance at that time was incredible, i remember coming home from King's Lynn, Ivan having scored yet another maximum, and eveyone commenting "Ivan's in a class of his own". Ivans British League average was over 11 points for several seasons, compare that to the others.

Fundin also had no mechanical advantage over his rivals, people from Norwich tell me that Ove would turn up without a bike of his own, and go out and score a maximum, his fifth world title in 1967 he was lifted on his bike for each ride, this guy had guts and a determination to win at any cost. I would say he was dominant at a time when arguably there was the most competition from other good riders-Briggs,Moore,Craven and others.

Nielsen for me was incredible, at Kings Lynn his ability to come from the back was amazing, his total dominance was amazing, he probably had a mechanical advantage over his rivals, for some of the time, but he certainly had some high class opposition in Gunderson, Jan o Pedersen,Ermolenko and several others.

What i am saying here is that Nielsen had a complete mastery of riding any track in any condition and come from behind to beat anyone, the other 2 riders i mention did most of there work from the front, Hans was not an invincible gater, just an incrdibly talented rider.

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Ivan rates his win in Poland 1970 as his greatest achievement due to the dominance of Poles on their own circuit and as you say, the practise they had beforehand.

also that year, things were made totally uncomfortable for Mauger with regards to where he stayed, where he was in the pits, and problems given to him by the Polish officials.

 

this was a meeting that was going to be won by a Pole no matter what ... Ivan just showed his talent again

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What i am saying here is that Nielsen had a complete mastery of riding any track in any condition and come from behind to beat anyone, the other 2 riders i mention did most of there work from the front, Hans was not an invincible gater, just an incrdibly talented rider.

 

I thought Hans had a well known problem with big tracks that it took quite a while to overcome :unsure:

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Hans never seemed to have a problem beating the **** out of our team at Bradford either - not a bad sized track!!!

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I'm not saying he was poor on big tracks,just he had a problem with them,mentally maybe,which he admitted.Can't find the article where he discussed it but here is something else.Q&A

Favourite type of track "Grippy ,deep and smooth! And preferably small"

worst track "Exeter was always pretty dodgy! And Halifax..."

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