DJC

My mind went to the Swedish final where both were outscored by Lhati, Hellstrom Bangs and Lindback. But I may have done them a disservice, they are more steady in Sweden than I'd expect - didn't realise Thorssell was doing so well in lg2 in Poland, thought he was in lg3!

Kim not fully fit (arm op today/yesterday) Berntzon not in great form neither is Thorsell. Not too far from the three I'd have thought. Hellstrom Bangs could feel hard done by not making the side. Douglas is the big surprise for me, over Chris Holder who seems to go well at Belle Vue. New blood within the squad though.

Squads finally announced Team A - FRANCE 1. David Bellego © 2. Steven Goret 3. Mathias Trésarrieu 4. Tino Bouin 5. Jordan Dubernard Team manager: Laurent Sambarrey Team B - POLAND 1. Patryk Dudek 2. Maciej Janowski 3. Dominik Kubera 4. Piotr Pawlicki 5. Bartosz Zmarzlik © Team manager: Rafal Dobrucki Team C - ITALY 1. Paco Castagna © 2. Nicolas Covatti 3. Nicolas Vicentin 4. Matteo Boncinelli Team manager: Alessandro Dalla Valle Team D - UKRAINE 1. Andryi Karpov © 2. Marko Levishyn 3. Stanislav Melnychuk 4. Nazar Parnitskyi 5. Stanislav Ohorodnik Team manager: TBA Team E - GERMANY 1. Kai Huckenbeck © 2. Erik Riss 3. Kevin Wölbert 4. Norick Blödorn 5. Valentin Grobauer Team manager: Mathias Bartz Team F - SWEDEN 1. Fredrik Lindgren © 2. Jacob Thorssell 3. Oliver Berntzon 4. Kim Nilsson 5. Timo Lahti Team manager: Morgan Andersson Team G - FINLAND 1. Jesse Mustonen © 2. Antti Vuolas 3. Tero Aarnio 4. Niclas Säyriö 5. Otto Raak Team manager: Aki-Pekka Mustonen SEMI-FINAL 2 – WEDNESDAY, JULY 10 Team A - CZECH REPUBLIC 1. Jan Kvech 2. Vaclav Milik © 3. Adam Bednar 4. Daniel Klima 5. Eduard Krcmar Team manager: Ezven Erban Team B - AUSTRALIA 1. Ryan Douglas 2. Max Fricke 3. Jack Holder © 4. Brady Kurtz 5. Jaimon Lidsey Team manager: Mark Lemon Team C - NORWAY 1. Mathias Pollestad © 2. Glenn Moi 3. Truls Kamhaug 4. Lasse Madland Fredriksen 5. Magnus Klipper Team manager: Kenneth Klipper Smith Team D - SLOVENIA 1. Anze Grmek 2. Matic Ivacic © 3. Denis Stojs Team manager: Gregor Arnsek Team E - USA 1. Alex Martin 2. Broc Nicol 3. Gino Manzares © 4. Luke Becker 5. Slater Lightcap Team manager: Steve Evans Team F - DENMARK 1. Mikkel Michelsen © 2. Anders Thomsen 3. Rasmus Jensen 4. Mads Hansen 5. Andreas Lyager Team manager: Nicki Pedersen Team G - LATVIA 1. Andzejs Lebedevs © 2. Daniils Kolodinskis 3. Francis Gusts 4. Jevgenijs Kostigovs 5. Olegs Mihailovs Team manager: Vladimir Ribnikovs FIM SON FINAL – SATURDAY, JULY 13 GREAT BRITAIN 1. Dan Bewley 2. Tom Brennan 3. Adam Ellis 4. Robert Lambert 5. Tai Woffinden © Team managers: Simon Stead and Oliver Allen

Given the injuries to Doyle it really isn't in his interests to not be fit given the SON is at his home track that he flies around. Surely he would have been a must over LIdsey for spot 3 until he was injured.

Presumably it’ll be done during the GP coverage on the weekend then. The cynic in me thinks Fricke isn’t in the 3 after his performance last night. Not seen him that quick or aggressive before, looked like he had a point to prove

Do the nations still have to name squads or just the three they are going with? Either way, does anyone know when they have to be named by? The majority seem to pick themselves but interested to see who makes up spot 3 for the Swedes and Danes.

Tarrasenko back in?

There’s a very long list…but they’ll have everyone believing riders get injured because ok UK tracks.

Klindt in the ambulance after a very similar incident! presumably they don’t teach that the throttle works both ways over there

In last week's Star the only two with lower averages were Hodder and Perry both in their first full season at this level.

£28 for sausage and mash and apple pie now. Normal menu is £14 without a desert isn’t it? Talk about ‘surge pricing’, have Uber started sponsoring the SON?

Lack of research from Tatum really does irritate me. Don't think he mentioned that Magic was returning to a track he'd ridden before but was happy to wax lyrical about Riss getting to the finals of a complete different discipline - several times! He does have a soft spot for young Erik! Didn't know Kvech had ridden in the UK before, they can't even read numbers on the back of kevlars to know who is in a race. It isn't hard to do a bit of prep for one meet a fortnight even in a busy GP month. Everyone seems to be going on well, no matter how poor they've been riding. As for the coverage, isn't Brando in the production office? Surely he's been around the sport long enough to know what works and doesn't.

I’m far from Zmarzlik’s biggest fan but last night he was ridiculously good when it mattered. you’ve probably hit the nail on the head there with the Bart v Darcy debate, it feels like Bart was born to be the best (only sporting comparisons I can make are the Williams sisters in tennis) and is the ultimate professional where as Darcy was incredibly talented but his actions and percived desire were more often than not very lacking. Thoroughly enjoyed that meeting but did had a tenner on Fricke at 20/1 which put a downer on the final!

Its fair and I do appreciate the additional costs, it's the timing that doesn't make it feel right personally. All those factors would have been known when ticket's were released. Do you have to pay to park on a regular Monday?

The fact its been announced after ticket sales have been open for so long makes it even worse. They bleated about having to have such expensive tickets as it's expensive to put on then release those prices a month later. Not a great look.

the majority of crashes I've seen from over there are from rider errors , because they can only ride on snooker table tracks. The incident with Zischke this week the prime example. Riders over there are more of a hazard than the tracks over here.

Two Danes and a Pole getting the WCs then. Lightcap 1st reserve and based 10 hours+ from the tracks (unless he's basing himself in Europe for the rest of the season) seems mad. 2024 FIM SGP2 – FIM SPEEDWAY UNDER-21 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP LINE-UP (in FIM ranking order with rider numbers): 785. Nazar Parnitskyi (Ukraine) 355. Sebastian Szostak (Poland) 43. Casper Henriksson (Sweden) 388. Bastian Pedersen (Denmark) 505. Wiktor Przyjemski (Poland) 117. Jesper Knudsen (Denmark) 110. Jakub Krawczyk (Poland) 545. William Drejer (Denmark) 999. Mathias Pollestad (Norway) 144. Francis Gusts (Latvia) 22. Leon Flint (Great Britain) 243. Philip Hellström-Bängs (Sweden) 137. Bartosz Bańbor (Poland) 108. Villads Nagel (Denmark) 97. Mikkel Andersen (Denmark) SUBSTITUTE RIDERS: 28. Slater Lightcap (USA) 31. Tate Zischke (Australia) 89. Dan Thompson (Great Britain) 609. Sebastian Kössler (Austria) 226. Anze Grmek (Slovenia)

King withdrawn after testing after the Ipswich meeting last night.

He has, he rode for Eastbourne in 2014/14 and a few meetings for Leicester in 2015. Most of the tracks he rode in that time are sadly gone though

Lambert and Kemp originally named as 17&18

Just a thought. Zack's actual riding average and win % was higher than Mountain up until the last week or so and we all know Lemon loves an Aussie. There are clubs out there definitely more in need of him than Belle Vue. Aside from them you could make an argument for him going to almost anyone in the league.

Could he replace Mountain? If so I wouldn't be surprised to see Lemon swoop sooner rather than later. I'd guess he'd be a straight swap for MPT though

Completely agree on lambert, he always seems to look quicker than everyone else until heat 21/22 then crumbles. not sure if Crumpy is still with him but he needs someone to help him with that psychological step up because he has shown he’s good enough. I don’t think anyone is really suggesting knocking people off but there is too much respect for Zmarzlik and nobody bar Holder and Doyle this year tries to stop his trademark dive bomb going into bend 3x they all just move aside for him. also on Zmarzlik, I don’t think I’ve ever seen somone bounce off the fence so much going into bends, to the point where he looks out of control a lot of the time

Louis was very complimentary of him, seemingly out of nowhere before heat one last night. could you be on to something?

He’s just posted on social media. shoulder damage, 2 snapped tendens and torn rotator cuff