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It's just another failing of a horrible competition. To me, pairs meetings are rubbish for fans. Even if everything runs properly, as a fan of 1 Nation I am spending more time NOT watching MY team than watching them. That's rubbish. The SWC had my team involved in every race. Can we just admit that this was a flawed attempt to stop the perceived domination of one Nation, which has led to the domination of another Nation, and go back to the far better competition that we had before?

I think it is right time to make brave decision and bring back proper World Cup. 4 teams, 4 riders each team with 1 reserve (maximum 3 rides to avoid using top rider as reserve). Easy and simple. Run it every 4 years, to see which team is the best in current riders generation. Leave pairs (call them SON if you want) but bring teams back!

So Australia rode their 4 heats against the teams who finished in the top 4, Russia, Poland, Denmark and Sweden.. If they'd got to ride against GB and the Czechs they would of been making the top 3 easily, just shows how ridiculous calling a meeting part-way through is. Mark Lemon was quite right to be a bit pissed off!

Steve Worrall got that place in the 2017 SWC on merit, as demonstrated by his performance in the final - he was just about the only British rider who came out of that final with his head held high. Remember he was British No 2 that year as well. It's a shame he hasn't been quite the same rider since his broken leg at the start of 2018, because on his 2017 form, he would have been Lambert's natural partner after Woffy was hurt. As for this year, with Woffy out, our best two riders are Lambert and Bewley. There's then a situation that, as Bewley is under 21, it makes sense to line him up in that slot, since the U21 has to take a compulsory ride but the senior riders do not. So whoever was lined up at No 2 for GB was unlikely to get a ride. At which point, what's the sensible thing to do? Take along a rider at the end of their career? Or take along Kemp and Palin over to Poland to let them experience the atmosphere. My frustration last night was with the FIM and BSI for turning the meeting into a farce. Not the GB set up, who tracked our best two non-injured riders last night and therefore did what they are supposed to do. Who is on better current form than Lambert and Bewley? Name that rider.

Drew Kemp is eighteen, he won’t be ‘on the scrap heap’ at twenty one unless he doesn’t progress at all. You’ll have to explain to me why Steve Worrall would warrant a place or why you think he can make the grade internationally as I just don’t see it. Its also worth mentioning Anders Rowe who has based himself in Poland this year and hit himself some wonderful experience riding over there, something nowhere near enough Brits have done over the years although they can’t be blamed for making good money doubling up in the UK.

Me too, I’m fed up with this one for the future line or to gain experience, you’re in a competition to win

Absolutely agree about the part I've put in bold. To me, it doesn't matter if they're 60 years old, if they're in your top two, then they should ride.

Scrap doubling up. Improve the standard of our riders by putting them out of their comfort zone and improve the quality of the product here by not having riders with more clubs than Tiger Woods. I like it.

So, on the track, who's gonna be on the podium on Wednesday? Dan Bewley should be a top-three certainty, as should Drew Kemp. Then there's Anders Rowe and Tom Brennan. Plus Leon Flint, on his home circuit. Oh, and Kyle Bickley, Jordan Palin, Jason Edwards and even the Thompsons.......... In short, it should be a good night in at the speedway. Remember to offer a donation for your free stream....

It’s interesting that he hasn’t got a gig out in Poland when the likes of Craig Cook, Charles Wright and then even riders of a similar calibre over here like Sam Masters are riding in the Polish 3rd tier this year, Brady Kurtz, Nick Morris in the past and other Australians too of similar calibre. I’m sure if they were that desperate for a ride out in Poland they could get it but probably just happy earning a living double upping in Britain

I think I heard Lemon also say (on the talk speedway podcast) that Chris had also declined to ride. What the hell Lemon was doing using Lidsey against the Poles beats me, he's made some very strange decisions in the past also... I wonder if his performance is ever scrutinised by MA To be fair if any of the other countries lost a rider of the calibre of Woffinden they would be in severe trouble, GB have been very unlucky for the last couple of years in losing him for the SoN. Sweden without Lindgren, Denmark without Madsen, Aussie without Doyle, Russia without one of their top 2 etc IMO you should ALWAYS pick your strongest team for a world cup event, there are many riders that should have been picked ahead of Kemp, no disrespect to him. If you constantly pick youngsters "to give them experience" then you ignore the riders that you were giving that experience to a few years back, you then get into a catch 22 situation of giving riders the experience and then jettisoning them after they've had the experience. Steve Worrall was "given the experience" a few years back and now he's totally forgotten about. At least he didn't mention Greg Hancock tonight... which must be a first Absolutely spot on False dawn, can't disagree with a word you say. This was a world championship event for god's sake and to treat it like an end of season fixture filler that just needed to be run to get it over and done with was a complete disgrace and devalued an already massively devalued competition even further, if that's the way they're going to treat it they should just scrap the competition. The track was a disgrace and the meeting should have been called off before the start. The bumps in the track have been there for weeks as seen in Lublin's final Ekstraliga fixtures and nothing was done to smooth them out. To hold this even in October was complete madness, why on earth it wasn't planned for the summer months like it always has been is a mystery

It seems a little harsh to say that he was "woeful" this year. He didn't really get a proper run this year in Poland...What did he do? 10 races across the season or something like that? He was in a team that was set up with a good number 8 and often got replaced in every race...In a different team he might have had a better season. I feel kinda sad to see him retire. As you said, he was a bright hope at one point and hasn't delivered on the expectations, but more that that, it's esentially another Country lost to the sport. Croatia basically have no-one racing now.

WHY are you still asking about this? Elite sports people and their support team do NOT have to self isolate in the UK.

But that's not what happened. The SON finals are designed to run over 42 heats plus a semi final and a final. So 14 heats does not in any way represent 50% of "the meeting". Actually it's less than a third. So we are left with an empty sense of being short changed. And that's before we even consider the quality of racing (for the most part) on such a wet circuit. Oh, and when did rain make a circuit bumpy? I can accept that the surface might become uneven following some racing. But those bumps were there from the start of the "practice session".

With their other riders they’ve got next in line, I wouldn’t bet against them winning an event with 5 rider teams when you add in Grigori Laguta, Tarasenko and Kulakov too!

Mickey Mouse Speedway.. Well done FIM Well done BSI Clowns.

THE FIM will probably argue that the change wasn't simply to weaken Poland's chances of winning but to have more nations involved which in turn would encourage young riders in those countries to have aspirations of appearing on the international stage. Personally prefer the old-style World Cup.

When In the 80s, the Danes dominated WTC somehow it did not bother anyone. The Danes had a golden generation of champions, and they used them for quite a few years. Nobody thought of calling off the competition in which one nation dominates, in the same way nobody is calling off Polish club competition dominated in the last four years by one club. So when Poles came to the fore after years of drought, the FIM abandoned the exciting competition that often kept fans in suspense until the last race, and sometimes even the last bend. They did it under the ridiculous pretext of allegedly caring for the development of the speedway. Mind you, it has to be clear that Poles did not always win. They also had to swallow the bitterness of defeat, for example in Bydgoszcz, where Niels Kristian Iversen stole the gold from them in the last few yards. All the time, however, there were great emotions and great promotion of speedway. What do we have now? A two-day competition, where riders are to run 42 races, but in the end everything is decided by the grand final anyway. To this day, no one knows whether this competition called the Speedway of Nations is a continuator of the WTC or the World Best Pairs. FIM itself, cannot answer this question, saying that it is the championship of … wait for it… Speedway of Nations. What a ridiculous name. Finally, a simple question for the gentlemen from the FIM. Isn’t he Speedway of Nations getting boring? After all the Russians win it year after year. it doesn't matter whether the final takes place in Wrocław, Togliatti or on a soggy track in Lublin, interrupted after 14 races? Russia are the champion and that's it! I’d say, yes it is getting boring. (as seen from sportowefakty.pl point of view)

Remember him riding with his ankle in plaster at White city Glasgow in a World Championship Qualifier in the Sixties.

not at Torun?

My SON experience started last winter shortly after the tickets in Manchester went on sale. Being my first live Speedway race and also my first trip to Europe I bought the best grandstand tickets for myself and my SO (significant other) (after seventy what do you call each other in the UK?) Then the air fare, hotel room in Manchester, plans to rent a car after the races and see (practice) if we could drive on the left without incidence. We were going to head North and go along the coast into Scotland then explore our way back down to London to fly back home. Needless to say we were both very excited! Then along came the Covid and we just had to have a wait and see. Well we had our SON yesterday at 1:00 PM and as everyone has said it wasn't ideal......BUT that race with Emil getting pushed wide one second and passing Doylie up against the wall next second will always be my only memory of the race. I hate to agree with KeirStarmerFan BUT I would like to know who else could've pulled that off! So my Speedway experience and my trip to your country didn't turn out the way that I had hoped but that's the way life is, isn't it? I've been a Speedway fan for about 8 years now and that heat was one of the most exciting i can remember and I'm happy with that!

Once the decision had been made to rush the meeting through to Ht14 then call it I think most of the rules went out the window.

It was originally 8/9th May in Manchester ,I had tickets.

Steve Worrall (as are many others) is better than Kemp, whether he was asked I don't know, but Kemp could easily be in the same position as Steve Worrall in a few years. Test Matches are for sorting the wheat from the chaff not world championship events

Kerr, stupid predictive text

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Speedway-race-jacket-Redcar-Bears/203143607352 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Speedway-race-jacket-Middlesborough-Tigers-Original/203143613627

It was planned for the summer months originally(May) but when it got called off they wanted to hold on to our money rather than refund.Thats the only reason IMO.

Viewing is not compulsory I hope.

Do u really think that Dan bewley and his crew coming to ride in a mickey mouse meeting at berwick on a wed night counts as Elite sports.!

Was there a supplementary rule made to allow Poland & Russia to finish the meeting without their U21 rider having to take the compulsory ride as per the rules?

I don't think Rory has ridden in it for a while

Indoor like the ones they did in the 80s on concrete? SoN on a tiny concrete oval....That's the sort of thing that Castagna would probably sign up to

Vaclav Verner did 4 row for Exeter in a home meeting against Sheffield in 1994,he rode in heats 11,12,13 and 14 (3,fx,3,3) and won heat 16 for good measure,aged 45!

In Adelaide

Hopefully, and with a better choice of when to run it we might well not get the complete farce tonight’s match was. That meeting was a dreadful advert for the sport and should never have started.

Plenty IMO.

Has there ever been a worse commentary by Pearson than tonight’s?

Hopefully this will convince BSI not to have it in October again next year as planned. May too early though, needs to be July/August.

Scott Nicholls always seems to be the voice of reason. Absolutely correct that this meeting should never have started and should have been rolled over until tomorrow morning with a much better forecast. Also correct IMO about the use of the U21 riders. There is a seperate competition altogether for U21 riders and this should be all about the best riders from each country.

Just whizzed through the meeting, what an awful spectacle apart from one lap by Emil. Glad everyone got through in one piece. Not a good advert.

Ceislaks ego cost Poland. Thought he was bigger than what was right for his nation.

No mean achievement..

I guess this is aimed at me. Where have I critiqued the commentary? I think they do a tremendous job. Yes it’s been set up for the Poles. Please surprise me and call it at heat 14 with the Russians one point up. Yes, most of this season has been woeful to watch. Sweden farcical. Poland mostly poor with a few decent meetings, in the lower league. Best meeting was at Gdansk this year.

Pearson really is a clown at times

This is like when your club decide to put on one last meeting at the end of season.

Surpised with that choice but he does make loads of weird calls. Wait until he uses Lidsey

When asking a Pole a question in English why do interviewers (Kiri) use long words that even English people do not use in conversation. No wonder Zmartzlik could not give a decent answer to some questions. Stupid. Charlie Webster doing a good job. Not done a GP all season so she comes in a bit blind.

I hope that will stop Phil Morris watering the track for once !

It's off to Torun.

Looks like those dancing ants the had at Cardiff one year