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I wish you had competed he was Sh!te.

The legendary Polish former National speedway team coach, Marek Cieslak, commented in sportowefakty.pl results of Poland’s sport Personality 2024 plebiscite announced yesterday. When mentioning fifth placed achieved by the 5-times world champion, Bartosz Zmarzlik, and problems with speedway, Marek Cieslak said this: It is a complex issue. We need the successes of our national teams, which we do not have. We have achieved the best league in the world, which has great viewership. The problem is that the Grand Prix series cannot keep up with this at all, and it is folding down. This is visible, for example, in the locations. There are no new ones, and in addition, large stadiums are slowly disappearing. The FIM and the promoter Discovery are responsible for this. In addition, the best riders in the world do not ride in the series. The recent nominations for wild cards and their translation into geographical terms are a joke. All this means that the Grand Prix arouses interest in fewer and fewer countries. I have the impression that even here (i.e. in Poland) it does not generate the same emotions as it used to. If it were, the successes and the phenomenon of Zmarzlik would have a much greater echo in the country. Do you think that it is time for Artiom Łaguta and Emil Sajfutdinov to return to the series? Initially I was against them, but now I think they should be in the series. Zmarzlik would also benefit from the presence of Artiom Łaguta or Emil Sayfutdinov. I have no doubt that he would still win, but then his successes, this rivalry with the Russians would arouse much more emotions. In this way, the audience would be larger. Please remember what rivals Tomasz Gollob had. He had to compete with Tony Rickardsson, Greg Hancock, Billy Hamill, Jason Crump, Mark Loram, Hans Nielsen, Leigh Adams, Ryan Sullivan and many other great stars. Each of them had papers for the title. Now the series lacks such figures.

Agree with the above but all this is to the detriment of the sport , less people watching, less talk on forums etc, less people attending an already diminishing sport.

Track prep maybe,never seems to be the same each week at some tracks.

Because in reality its the same as British riders going abroad and in the main struggling. Okay, you have your Bewleys, Lamberts and Woffys who succeed but how many others hold down regular spots in the top leagues over seas? If you watch racing from Swedish and Danish tracks, you will realize they aren't actually that similar to UK tracks. And Polish tracks definitely aren't. It's what makes it even more impressive when you see a foreign rider come to the UK and hit the ground running straight away.

Very true... Private Eye may be a better call though... They know how to say everything without saying anything...😀 They love a good council/developer story...

"Forsberg is a pretty common name, there was no relationship between them. Dan was from Vaggeryd, but mainly rode for Vargarna. He was Sweden's first ever world finalist in 1952, when he was just 18 years. Finished joint fifth. That was a huge sensation. He had went on his own to a training school at Ringwood i England and was then offered a place with Birmingham. That made him really good. During 1952 he was among the most well-known sportsmen in Sweden in any sport, was awarded various prizes for his fantastic results, but could never really repeat it in later seasons. He was only 25 when he retired, following a very bad crash at Wiener Neustadt. He released a book about his life in 2022, very good one ( danforsberg.se) His son Raymond rode speedway in the 70's and 80's and grandson Billy in early 2000's. Birger was from Skellefteå in the north of Sweden, where speedway was held in the early 50's. He was a very tough rider and became popular in England. He started his career with non league club Norrskenen (Northern Lights) and then joined Stockholm club Monarkerna. Kaj was from Eskilstuna and started his career with Smederna. Liked Australia so much after a speedway tour to that country that he decided to remain there for the rest of his life. He rode speedway in Australia in the early 60's. Roger was from Gothenburg and rode for Kaparna. He also remained in Australia after a trip to that country, but returned home after a few years."

I have not seen that anywhere either so it is his head unless proven otherwise, do not see any reason why they would drop it.

I know I shouldn't mention football but a massive well done to Plymouth Argyle beating Liverpool, Man City next!

I expect the next stage or part of the con is to make people believe that Speedway will happen at the new site so it's allows the Abbey to be built on before finding problems to stop them building this new track and Stadium .it's hardly a new plan from gaming..The bit that's makes me laugh is why and how would gaming fund this? At the end of the day they went to the Brandon enquiry saying that a similar project was not viable but now somehow this is.. The only hope for this is that Gaming have promise funds to Terry for this project for his help in letting them built on the Abbey site.No matter if the new site is built I won't be going or giving any money to Osbourne or Russell. They are a pair of scumbags.

I've never seen that anywhere, I really hope it's not true. Does nothing to help British riders get team places. If a foreigner can't reach a 4.00 average, should they really be taking the places of Brits at reserve? Look at Poland, they look after their own & dominate world speedway (except the SON).

I don't know Dan or Joe at all, but just looking in from the outside they seem very respectful and not spoilt little kids like some others are... hope they both can go far in the sport.

Scott Autrey