AndyM

Any reason to suspect Nicholls will do better than average? I can't think of one, sad to say. Probably be the usual suspects plus continental long-track specialists contesting the top spots. It's becoming a tad predictable, this year.

Just as man will one day walk on Mars. Bound to happen eventually, but who knows when? More to the point, when will we win 3 in a row and be the envy of the speedway world rather than a laughing stock?

Haven't seen him, but maybe he is very promising. Just a word of caution, because a lot can go wrong between now and then. When they were 15/16, both Joe Screen and Andy Smith looked respectively like world champs, but never quite made it that far. It's a whole different ball game and demands complete dedication and perseverence. You're from Yorkshire I see - remember a lad by the name of Michael Graves? At one time he rode junior matches and attended training school sessions at Bradford and Belle Vue, but Bammy wouldn't have anything to do with him because his father insisted that he wouldn't ride in wet conditions and wanted all kinds of things in his contract. The dad was convinced he was grooming his lad to be a future world champ. Sadly, the career of Michael Graves never made it beyond reserve for the Dukes in the mid-to-late 80s - and he certainly never learned to ride wet tracks! Not saying Josh will fall into the same pattern, but he must stick at it, learn his trade and go through the ranks before he even thinks about becoming world champ.

For comparison, PC and Mike Lee were no 1 for their respective teams by 19!

Think it's not at all clear which is the best Pole. The three you've included as dark horses are more than capable of going through the card. Could be one of the tightest U21 finals in some years.

Like you Rabbit, after my recent adventures in Poland I think the chances of a weekend pass are pretty remote!

Looks an excellent line-up. Rabbit's right - the venue will make a key difference to who is favourite. Anywhere in Poland or other longish continental tracks will favour the Poles like Rempala, Miedzinski, Kasprzak and Hlib, though Lindback will be there or thereabouts. A smallish track might give Ken Bjerre an outside chance, but he needs to improve from his recent league form. Think it's probably just experience for James Wright and Danny King, but best of British to both of them.

That wasn't the argument. I said that the gap between the current riders and the growth of the under-15s could possibly mean, as a worst case scenario, that we had no riders in the GP cut for 5 years - not the next 5 years. Think about it - if Scott misses the cut, we're down to the undemocratic process of nomination rather than fair qualification on the track. That might result in us having a slot, but we can't guarantee it. We place great reliance on development by the likes of Wright and Kennett making it, but neither are yet full-time EL. There's the U21 championship, but they need more international competition to progress.

There's no way the talent of our young riders is in any way inferior to riders from other countries, but the rate of development is lousy for many of the reasons Splatty quotes. Incentivising riders to stay in PL while allowing foreign riders at an equivalent age and ability to cut their teeth against the best is an obvious handicap to the development of our riders. If we've got CL as the training ground, why don't we have a process and method for fast-tracking riders with potential as a priority?

All those points and more should be debated, though I suspect the compromises they'd end up in with a BSPA conference even to agree (even without the legal implications being considered) will result in yet more arbitrary and meaningless decisions. Why? Because they have no clear long-term objectives or strategy. Goes back to finding somebody with the right skillset to establish and realise a vision and tell them what must be done to achieve it.

Yes, absolutely Splatty. Been saying so for months, support them, and create the sort of policy context that allows them to flourish. But it'll still be a long hard slog - quick fixes after years of neglect don't produce instant results. Look at the railways!

Under 15s is fine. But as I pointed out, the crisis won't wait that long - it's quite possible we might have no rider in GPs for 5 years!

Entirely agree. We've never had anyone to dominate the sport like a Rickardsson, Mauger, Fundin, Briggs, Gundersen or Nielsen. Quite amazing, really - our top riders have been unlucky with injury, proved to be flaky or are not sufficiently committed to repeat or expand on any triumphs. This is one reason why I suggested that a sports psychologist might help.

Nor can I - but if he can still get into the top 3, he's capable of winning it if other riders fail to deliver.

Sorry, but if Nicholls isn't yet in the top drawer, Rico is further adrift and Loram won't hit the same heights again. If this is the British 1-2-3, we're in a poor state for competing with the world. If Nicholls and Rico aren't good enough to make it, who will be up there in a year or two? Consider this - of the current leading speedway nations, all except Britain and Poland have one rider who has won at least one championship and is capable of repeating the feat: Sweden - Rickardsson Australia - Crump Denmark - Pedersen USA - Hancock The killer is that most have up-and-coming riders beneath them who will form the next generation of success, and Poland is certainly looking good to have riders up there to replace Gollob soon. Where are our lads? Unless Stead, Kennett and co don't make very rapid headway and break into the GP circus darn quickly we'll be frozen out entirely. Frankly, the next 2-4 years don't look at all promising for us. This should be setting alarm bells ringing somewhere...but I don't see any evidence of that at all.

Used to be the best of the best in our leagues. Don't think you can say that now - a lot of top riders not here, but lots of middling ones using the experience to overtake the very slow development pace among our own locally-bred talent.

People have been saying he's on the verge of a breakthrough for several seasons. Looks to me that he's plateaued and found his level, much as Leigh Adams seems to have done - nearly but not quite. As I've said before, the difference is probably little to do with track craft or machinery and everything to do with the rider's psychology and motivation. Who is managing Scott's affairs at present? Does he have someone to take care of all his finance and logistics, for example?

With no disrespect to Scott, he's a good heat leader at league level, but he's not crossed the class gap to top bracket GP status. He might eventually win a GP, but can you ever see him winning a series without a major improvement? Sorry to say this, but he looks like he's being overtaken by the likes of Lindback this season.

Doesn't affect them - they can use and abuse ours and other leagues. At the moment ours doesn't seem that attractive to the best, but we still line our teams wall-to-wall with low-to-mid ranking foreigners. You've got it right about the under-15s, Splatty - providing we continue to support them afterwards. But as you say, that won't give us a championship for 6-12 years, in all probability. What are we going to do up to that point?

Sotonian - yes, we know it was invented in Aussie, but it only became a major popular sport because of exploitation in the UK. Aussies were the pioneers, we were the innovators who established speedway on the world stage. Johnny Hoskins was instrumental, but he certainly wasn't alone in growing the sport. Maybe we're also responsible for its terminal decline, too? As for Loram, he was the most consistent rider in 2000 and became world champ because nobody dominated the other meetings, but in my view the winner is the one who wins meetings! Perhaps I'm alone, but I can't see that result ever being repeated.

That was the point, pugwash. We've got as many promising youngsters as every other nation, but we don't groom them for success by managing their development up to the top levels. We leave them to sink or swim. If I were Eddie Kennett I'd kill to get a programme of coaching activity from the likes of PC and Havvy (and ex-champs of other nationalities?) to understand what you have to do to win a championship, plus fitness coaches, dieticians, the best mechanics and tuners, a sports psychologist and/or motivational coach - anything which improves my development.

Here's the complete list of British (rather than just English) World Champions: 1949 - Tommy Price 1950/53 - Freddie Williams 1955/62 - Peter Craven 1976 - Peter Collins 1980 - Mike Lee 1992 - Gary Havelock 2000 - Mark Loram (who didn't win a single GP round!) In other words, 9 championships out of 59 years in which it's been run. This year will make that 9 out of 60, or 15%. In the same period, Sweden will have won 14 (including this year), Denmark 12 (since 1971), New Zealand 12, USA 6 & Australia 5. Since we're supposed to have been the founding fathers of this sport, 9 is a pretty pathetic return and ought to shame somebody into addressing the issue since we're nowhere near getting our current crop of riders up to the standard required to win another championship, let alone dominating it like some nations have done for periods (eg. Denmark's 6 in a row.) If Middlo is supposed to be the National Coach in his role as England Team Manager, he should be taking charge of every aspect of preparation for the GPs to ensure we've prepared the riders thoroughly with absolute attention to detail, taking no chances whatsoever. And he should be working on a 20-year strategy to get Brits to the top. But, like so much in British life, it's fallen the way of apathy. So to answer the question, probably not for some time. And if we do, it might be a bit of a fluke like Loram's championship without GP victories. Sad - we could do so much more.

First time I can recall Olsen apologising for anything! Will wonders never cease?

Russ Hodgson, Declan Eccles, Emil Sova, John Jackson & Steve Finch for starters.