moomin man 76

Absolutely no chance of speedway returning to Blunsden. Never trust anything coming from the mouth of Clarke Osborne. Stadia UK make their money from closing venues and selling them on for redevelopment. Stadia UK have never opened a new venue, in all their years of operation.

Sadly so true. In all honesty, the Russian final is far stronger than the World Championship rounds. I could count on one hand, the number of non-Russians who would be of sufficient standard to compete in the Russian final.

Pretty surprised at the allocation; especially the allocation of only two places to Swedish riders. Unless Aki-Ala Rihimaki fances doing the GP rounds, I'm not sure who in Finland wishes to compete/is capable of competing at GP level.

But at least Castagna gets a GP in his beloved Italy...

Oh dear...hopefully no one will be expecting any entertainment from the meeting. Never seen an interesting meeting yet from Terenzano.

Leitner also rode as the wildcard at the only Austrian Speedway GP at Weiner Neustadt in 1995.

Zorn did indeed look well off the pace...in his final heat, he was taken from behind by Rihimaki, before the latter lost control on the badly rutting 3rd-4th bend. To be honest, Rihimaki probably lost around 4pts from race rustiness...

Some good racing this afternoon in the European Championship, interspersed with long delays for track maintenance. However, with the cancelled GP Qualifier, it will be interesting to see how they determine the non-Russian GP riders. From what I have seen this afternoon, the only riders who can confidently expect a GP place (assuming they wish to compete) are Svensson, Ledstrom and Weber. The others will be there to simply make up the numbers. Haarahiltunen no doubt will get a place if fit to compete...

Martin Haarahiltunen out of the European Championship final with an elbow injury.

I hope not - a flat, long, narrow and very boring racetrack.

Aki Ala-Riihimäki was a top ice racer prior to the millennium. I do not know his back story nearly as well as f-s-p, but he rode in the Nordic Championship pre-Covid and ended up the highest placed Finnish rider, so he has earned his place on merit. Atte Suolammi is very young, but showed promise last winter. At the moment, Finnish ice racing seems stuck between these two polar points, with the likes of Aakko having retired, Jarf seemingly not interested in riding abroad and others not able to make an international breakthrough.

Ok. I know some of it was in the UK in 2019, as bits and pieces were used by Jesse Mustonen at SoN at Belle Vue.

Nike Lunna has retired - he has steadily been selling off his Finnish equipment; I would assume the same has happened to his gear in the UK too.

The Bulls may well wish to go back to Odsal, but whether they do or not, will not determine if speedway is staged. The article is somewhat disingenuous, as any speedway staged will generate revenue for the RFL, rather than the Bulls, given that the former holds the lease on Odsal.

One of the best motorcycle documentaries made, by the late, great, Bruce Brown and financed by Steve McQueen. Around twenty years ago, a three disk dvd version appeared, in which there was some brief footage of Barry Briggs, with the admission from Bruce Brown that a lot of speedway footage was shot, but ended up on the cutting room floor.

Hopefully the sentence he has received acts as some form of recompense, for the ordeals that his victims suffered. That Jason Varsity was a speedway rider should make not one iota of difference, in how people view him. He acted in an indefensible manner. People make plenty of mistakes in life, but equally have plenty of opportunities. Jason Garrity was given an opportunity in speedway, but failed to fully take it. Hopefully as his does his sentence, he will have time to reflect on his actions and leave prison a better person. In the meantime, I certainly will not miss his absence from the sport, which I hope he is not given the chance to return to.

All in all, the substitute list is Loktaev for his performance in the GP Challenge, followed by the finishing order in the World U21 Final. The latter was seeded as one rider per nation, hence there are riders now on the GP substitute list, who may not have even made it to a World U21 Final in a normal year. I have no problem with promoting young riders, so long as they are competitive. Sadly with the exception of Lidsey and possibly Kubera those nominated are no where near GP standard. In all probability, another one of Castagna's rubbish ideas...

A pity for Latvian speedway, but a reflection of the decline in quality of non-Latvian riders appearing for Daugavpils. Hopefully they can make Division Two pay, as on young talent coming through, they should be amongst the favourites for promotion in 2021.

Exactly, which is why Timo Lahti has appeared in the Swedish Championship riding on a Swedish licence, as well as riding for Finland in the SoN in the same year.

Sadly Andrejs Lebedevs hasn't done much this year, as a result of crashing into his own team mate (Robert Lambert) and breaking his leg, whilst riding for Rybnik. He missed the SEC (replaced by Timo Lahti) and GP Challenge through injury, so he won't be considered for a wild card.

GDP is a measure of total output per country, so on account of size of population, Russia will have a higher GDP than Poland, Sweden and Denmark. So does China, but I can't see any calls for SGP in China. Since 98% of the Russian population doesn't know anything about speedway adding an extra Russian, who has never shown any interest in SGP is not going to make one iota of difference to interest levels in Russia.

There's no chance Greg Laguta will get a wildcard. Two Russians in the series already and when push comes to shove, he disappears e.g at the GP Challenge. I'd like Timo Lahti to get a wildcard, but know he won't. Still he has the same chance as Kubera and Piotr Pawlicki - zero.

You obviously don't know much about cricket then, as the sport has been played in the Netherlands for over 150yrs. The Dutch have beaten the English twice at T20 cricket. Yes they have taken advantage of fielding players born outside the Netherlands on Dutch passports, but a significant core of the team grew up and learnt their cricket in the Netherlands. It is hardly as if England hasn't taken advantage of players born elsewhere on British passports...

Or alternatively field one rider in one heat on both days; hardly a major handicap when there is a semi-final and final at the end of the meeting.

To be honest, I would be happy if they ran it for what it is, which is the World Pairs Final. The compulsory U21 rider is a load of nonsense, which works against the aim of giving the smaller speedway nations a better chance of competing, as only a handful of nations have a rider of sufficient experience or ability.