Steve_R

Please stop talking about SPOTY. It is not going to happen. He might get a 5 second mention, or his name might scroll accorss the screen at some point, but that will be it. Andy Murry, Chris Froome, Ben Ainsle, Alistair Cook, Justin Rose, Mo Farah, Christine Orhorogu are shoe in for nominations. Add a Lions rugby player, and it's clear that there won't be room for a minority sport in the final candidates. Tom Sykes or Cal Crutchlow are more likely to be in than Tai. I'm not saying that this is how it should be, but remember the nominations are done by people like Sue Barker.

It caught me unaware, as I did not know he was going to be on. Totally unexpected. Shame the only clip they showed was 1 second of him on a slowing down lap, and 10 seconds of his mum in the crowd. I suppose they did not have the rights to show a clip of him actually in a race. His dedication came accross well, when they were asking about his injuries etc.

Indeed. After struggling to break 35 points in meetings on the road for the last two seasons, it's somewhat of a novelty to come close, let alone take wins or draws away from home.

Looks like this Plymouth team have turned the corner, so to speak.

The longer it takes for all the paperwork to be sorted out, the more difficult teambuilding will be. I wonder if Godfrey still has Sanchez's and Zager's phone numbers?

Thanks for running this.

Lindgren Harris Hancock N Pedersen

Simmonds was half a point under his starting 5.00 average. Hardly a disaster. Quite what this has to do with Glanz, I have no idea.

Hang on a minute, the mood seems to be mainly posative over the last page or two of this thread instead of the usual complaints! This cannot be right....

I just hope that Plymouths opening 1-7 have better luck with injuries than last season. Bowden gets a right slating on here, but he had to repalce virtually his entire side over the course of last season due to injuries. If most of the announced side stay fit, I rekon they could have a decent season.

Local rag confirms that James Holder joins on a 4.4 average, and also says that Werner is "expected to put pen to paper for 2012" http://www.thisisply...tail/story.html

What about Sanchez, will he be available, or is he likely to stay with your lot?

British speedway averages are always calculated from 4 rides. So he is simply apportioning down the points scored into a format comparable to club speedway. Therefore 4.67, which is second string level, and not really impressive enough to justify a SGP place. And by the Chris Harris, who lots of people are complaing is not good enough scored 16 plus 14 from the two world cup events he rode in.

He's proved he can compete with the very best riders in the world over the course of a season. If he can carry his brilliant form and the confidence that this must have brought him into the start of next season, then things could get very exciting indeed. There are always going to be people moaning about him on here about him getting a wildcard, despite the fact that he has now proved that he is well worth his place with the world's elite. Ho hum.

Brilliant for Gollob. It's great seeing someone achieve the world title after years of being the nearly man. I'm delighted that Harris looks like getting a top 8 finish - he was awesome last night. It will be nice to do without the forum whinging about having the best Bristis rider as a wild card mext season.

If the current British champ is not good enough, then Britain don't have a rider good enough.

I think my words were pretty clear. Maybe I used too many

Well there is COMPLETE mystery now, hence these threads and hence why I suggested the SGP bods actually publish a set number of riders from individual regions. Britain choose one rider based on their national championship or national qualifier, plus (if they get enough slots) one of their own nominated riders. Other countries do the same. It's not that complicated! Re smaller countries - that is what I had in mind for the organisers in holding back one or two slots for their own discretion, otherwise Zager for example would be stuffed.

Whilst everyone is going round and round over the same arguments, the thing that sticks out to me is that the way the riders are chosen needs to be clarified. Picking the best 16 riders in the world is an impossible task. Opinions are all subjective. Qualifiers are subject to track conditions that might favor certain riders etc. The best way I see is combining these two flawed methods in order to pick wildcards. Firstly, to those who think that the top riders should be in the series irrespective of nationality - this is great in theory, but in practice as already mentioned this would be a problem for broadcasters, and whether you personally would watch 16 Scandinavians, or 16 Aussies in a World Series is irrelevant because overall the viewing figures would almost certainly suffer, as would event sponsership & advertising etc. Take the two biggest sporting events in the World as an example. The Olympics and the Football World Cup. In the Olympics, each country has a maximum number of competitors in each event. That means that the Olympic final of the 10,000 meters for example will not contain the 16 best 10,000 meter runners in the world. To do so, Kenya and Ethiopia (say) would probably have to send 8 runners each. Does the fact that the Olympic final does not contain the best 16 athletes in the world cheapen the event at all? Of course not. It is still the pinnacle. Likewise the Football world cup. Because different continents all have qualifiers, are all the finalists the very best teams? Would the winner of the Australasia group make it through if they had to play in a European standard qualifying group, instead of just having to top a group containing some very tiny countries / islands? Back to speedway. My personal opinion is that I think that the top 8 should still qualify. After that each country or region should be given a certain number of spots. The number of places available to each country would depend on their strength and their riders performances in the GPs over the last season or more. The number of slots should be transparent, and public knowledge. It would then be up to the individual countries to set a clear qualifying method. The SGP organisers could still perhaps leave one or two wildcards to their own choice. So for example there could be a British qualifying event - maybe this could be combined with the British championship. The winner goes through. And if there is a second spot, that could then be decided on by the British authorities, which would mean that if a top class contender was injured for the qualifier (for example), they would still stand a chance to qualify. The problem I see is that currently there is no published rules of how SGP organisers call in the wildcards, which leaves people confused as to why they picked certain riders over others, and then the riders in question get slated for not being good enough, even though they are National Champion, for example!

Like it or not, Harris and Nicholls are still probably the best two British riders. If they struggle, then any of the current crop of Brits would struggle.

Don't know, but if I remember correctly, last year it was not long after the final GP.

Are the "Experts" on this thread that are knocking the GB team selected the same people who were saying that Chris Harris would be an embarrasment in the GP'S?

Still in shock - Amazing Amazing Amazing.

Why not - what a follow up story that would be... I'm not holding my breath though.

QUESTION - Where are all the people who predicted Chris Harris would finish bottom of the GP standings? Where are all the people who have been complaining that he should not even be in the GP series? ANSWER - They are currently wiping egg of their faces.... Apologies can be accepted by fax or email thankyou very much. I'm delighted for him. Well done Bomber (or "Baby Gull" as the PA announcer used to call him when he used to ride at St Austell - I wonder why that name did not stick!). Anyone got any video of his GP rides?