Humphrey Appleby

Yes, but speedway in Russia is popular in a limited number of places, as indeed it is in the major speedway nations as well. I'd certainly put Russia high up in the second tier of speedway nations, but population and geographical size isn't really much of a qualification for staging a GP somewhere. It makes no difference to them at all. The local promoter, except where IMG/BSI promote the event themselves, assumes financial responsibility for a GP. IMG/BSI get the same sponsorship and television money regardless of how many fans turn up. Yes, but how much is each fan paying? It's all very well getting 15,000 fans, but if they're only paying the equivalent of 1 pound each, then overall revenue is still the same as 1,000 fans paying 15 pounds each. The physical ability of Russia to stage big sporting events is not really in question. It's the financial and logistical arrangements that are much more complicated than if you stage events in an EU country, as anyone who has ever done such a thing knows. For starters, unlike Latvia and Slovenia, everyone travelling to Russia needs a visa, then you have to make 'arrangements' to ensure your equipment isn't indeterminably held up at customs until after the event. And so it goes on...

Russia is not an enormous speedway nation. It has a handful of tracks that stage a relative limited number of meetings. You still don't get it then? IMG/BSI do nothing out of the goodness of their hearts, or to popularise the sport around the world. It's all about finding a local organiser willing to take the financial risk of staging a GP, and/or paying IMG/BSI for the privilege of doing so. Clearly no mug, erm.. I mean promoter has been found in Russia until now. I wouldn't disagree that on the face of it, Russia is as deserving as some of the nations that have been awarded GPs. However, do not underestimate the difficulties of organising anything there. Until recently, it didn't even have a convertible currency, and there are no doubt still all sorts of legal minefields to negotiate as well.

Except that not much team racing is involved. The SWC basically uses an individual format dressed-up as a team competition.

That format was used for the WTC for a couple of seasons in the late-1990s I think. The problem was that teams didn't ride in every heat which allowed teams to contrive results for their mutual convenience.

Perhaps my memory is failing, but doesn't speedway have a World Cup tournament now? Scotland and Wales could barely scrape enough riders together for a team, whereas Ireland doesn't have any speedway riders (and are you talking about an all-Ireland, Northern Ireland or Republic of Ireland team). The point though is, that the FIM stipulates one representative team per national federation, and at the moment the ACU is the national federation for Great Britain. I think you'll find that in those days the ACU represented the whole Commonwealth. Originally there was one Commonwealth team riding as Great Britain, but in the early-70s the ACU started staged a qualifying round between English, Scottish, Australian and New Zealand representative teams to determine which side would represent them in the WTC 'proper'. There were separate England and Scottish teams in the World Pairs rounds, but I think liberties were often taken with national teams in that competition.

Where does it end? Why not have a separate national team for Bavaria as well? So national teams would end-up being contrived rather than truly representative? A bit like the NZ Maoris in the Rugby League World Cup.

The figures are likely to be largely made-up anyway, as they're suspiciously rounded in most cases.

Because there would only be about four or five countries strong enough to track competitive sides. The other problem is that most of the meetings wouldn't have any home interest, so would be a financial disaster. Even if you went for a home-and-away format, it's impractical for the like of Australia and the US to ride home meetings.