Steve Shovlar 10,439 Posted April 29, 2022 (edited) Watching the Polish league. Meant to be the best in the world but seems to me to be a far cry from where it was ten years ago. Where are the superstars? Most of the top guys are aged stars who have been around for what seems forever. Swedes? Nothing. Danes? Very little. Aussies? Nothing. Not sold on Lidsey. Both Fricke and Kurtz failed. Continental riders? Just oldies past their prime. Poles have Zmarzlik and Janowski and a few youngsters coming through, and so they should. Perhaps GB is not so far in a bad place compared to others with Bewley and Lambert. But it seems the top Polish league is getting cluttered with old Poles like KK, Walasek, Kolodziej, Gapinski. Etc who do a job but don’t set the sport alight. When top riders get to a certain high standard, they are currently able to maintain their position in the sport with fitness training, diet and because they are in the top bracket, continue to score and therefore pickup the best sponsorship and have the best equipment. It stifles youngsters and the sport gets bogged down with oldies. Edited April 29, 2022 by Steve Shovlar 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ch958 2,396 Posted April 29, 2022 these things go round, Div 2 finds kept GB at the top, or near. NZ were a power, USA were. There's no telling Polish superiority will always be there Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steve Shovlar 10,439 Posted April 29, 2022 (edited) True but in all my years I have never seen such a lack of fresh blood and top talent in the sport. Zmarzlik has a free run for WC this season. Where’s his challenge going to come from? Swedes, Danes, Brits, Aussies, yanks, zip, nothing. Just watched heat 7 of Torun v Ostrow. Koldoziej, Holder battling past Doyle. Young unknown pole tailed off no chance of scoring a point. Now I spoke to CH at Oxford last week and there’s no doubt he looks after himself physically. In good shape to stay at the top as long as he can. Edited April 29, 2022 by Steve Shovlar Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iris123 21,022 Posted April 29, 2022 21 minutes ago, Steve Shovlar said: True but in all my years I have never seen such a lack of fresh blood and top talent in the sport. Zmarzlik has a free run for WC this season. Where’s his challenge going to come from? Swedes, Danes, Brits, Aussies, yanks, zip, nothing. Just watched heat 7 of Torun v Ostrow. Koldoziej, Holder battling past Doyle. Young unknown pole tailed off no chance of scoring a point. Now I spoke to CH at Oxford last week and there’s no doubt he looks after himself physically. In good shape to stay at the top as long as he can. I commented a bit on this about a decade ago. The sheer drop in numbers in the Danish junior leagues and the lack of talent coming through. Phil Rising replied quoting erik Gundersen, that the next generation cming through were very good. But not a single one has done anything of note I was surprised looking this year that so many fairly average riders were now racing in Poland. So i guess they are suffering now as much as the rest 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steve Shovlar 10,439 Posted April 29, 2022 Its getting to the stage where there are only going to be a few outliers with the majority Polish. I mean, seriously, Jack Smith in the Polish u24 league? We have better than that! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TTT 1,249 Posted April 29, 2022 1 hour ago, Steve Shovlar said: Its getting to the stage where there are only going to be a few outliers with the majority Polish. I mean, seriously, Jack Smith in the Polish u24 league? We have better than that! The whole U24 league was a total failure. Even the press on Polish sites were saying it's a write off. Too many riders way out of their depth and they wouldn't even cut it in our SGB Championship League. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bavarian 768 Posted April 29, 2022 (edited) The number of speedway riders worldwide has shrunk alarmingly in recent years. That's why next to nothing is coming through anymore. Edited April 29, 2022 by Bavarian 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bagpuss 10,794 Posted April 30, 2022 16 hours ago, Steve Shovlar said: Its getting to the stage where there are only going to be a few outliers with the majority Polish. I mean, seriously, Jack Smith in the Polish u24 league? We have better than that! My assumption was that Jack got his Polish gig through his Dad who I believe was an extremely popular rider over there. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fromafar 10,395 Posted May 8, 2022 (edited) On 4/30/2022 at 10:28 AM, Bagpuss said: My assumption was that Jack got his Polish gig through his Dad who I believe was an extremely popular rider over there. Has to be,seemingly he was being passed for fun at Berwick on Sat in NDL.Highly overates himself. Edited May 8, 2022 by Fromafar Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JCookie 753 Posted May 9, 2022 There's absolutely nothing coming through. Even the current crop are a bit meh. Will there be any more Crumps, Gollobs, Adams, etc? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
