HenryW

Holder is expected to be there for Wrocław. A helicopter has been arranged to take him from the Torun meeting to ZG.

Nothing in recent times, just a stupid decision 5 years ago which led to a 1 year ban for recreational drug use. At the time he was developing quite nicely in the Ekstraliga but seemed to be set back quite a bit on his return.

I really feel for Loktaev. He's a tidy little rider who probably hasn't made the best of his ability so far in his career with his off track indiscretions. But to miss out on a GP place by 1 point for two years running must be devastating for him. I also hope there is some good news about Adam and he hasn't suffered anything too nasty.

Wow. I didn't see that one coming. I wonder what the problem was.

The stadium that you will have visited has now also been demolished, with a newer smaller one currently being constructed. I don't believe the tribute to Craven is going into the new stadium, which is a shame. There was a suggestion a while back that it was going to the museum at paradise wildlife park. I'm not sure whether that happened or not, though.

You say that, but it also means that a quarter of the rounds are in Prague...and Zmarzlik's results there have been less than impressive the last few years. In the last 3 years he has failed to make the semis, with 9th in 2019 and 2017 and 15th in 2018. With the revised points scoring system, if he fails to make the semis in a quarter of the GPs he'll have an uphill battle to retain his title. Obviously, the fact that he DOES have a very good record at the other 3 tracks means that he could still potentially cover a bad couple of rounds in Prague, but it's by no means guaranteed if others can string results together. I'll need to have a think about my own picks for top 5

Sorry R+R, wildly drifting off topic on a well maintained thread, but it's a subject that interests me Виктор would be the Russian equivalent of Victor/Wiktor. Latvian is the only official language in Latvia, something that has caused some problems/criticisms from the Russian speaking population in the South. From his online presence, it seems that the rider in question spells his name Andžejs Lebedevs, but the most visible and prominent thing on the back of his kevlars recently has just been "AnJ" Most transliterators I have used have taken a name starting with H to the cyrilic Х, which fits with the way that you pronounce the names of Cities like Ха́рьков or Хаба́ровск...And yet in English those get turned into Kharkov and Khabarovsk...I've never really understood how/why the "K" got involved there I always enjoy seeing an online transliteration of a name that has gone from latin to cyrilic and back again but using different rules in each direction. You can end up with some strange results... A simple example is the main speedway City of Russia, Тольятти, which depending on the transliterator used will probably give you Tolyatti, Toljatti or some other similar variant. The City was named after Palmiro Togliatti, so it should really come back to Togliatti, but the transliteration rules going in each direction pretty much make it impossible for that to happen. That's always been a translation that amused me... It ultimately makes sense, but the alternative meaning in English makes it amusing... Probably the more relevant question about those letters is why English still has them. They are completely worthless and could be replaced by others in almost all cases where they are used. Anyway, to get back on topic, the current top 4 in the Ekstraliga seem like they should stay the top 4 for the playoffs if my predictions for results in the last 4 rounds are accurate. Given the fact that I regularly lose when betting on speedway, it's probably safe to say my predictions are worthless

Totally agree with Bagpuss. You have to remember that Lambert is 2 years younger than Holder. Where was Holder at Ekstraliga level 2 years ago? Holder also has had the benefit of some "easy" races for a bit of a confidence boost in the lower Polish league this year. Don't get me wrong, I've been impressed with Holder's efforts in the Ekstraliga this year, but I don't think a straight comparison with Lambert is fair right now.

Maybe I am being naïve but I'm not convinced that this is the current aim. The Polish league schedule has been massively compressed by the current global situation and any positive tests put a huge burden on that schedule, or lead to teams running without key riders. If you were in charge of Polish speedway right now, would you do anything different from what they are doing? It might be a controversial opinion, but I honestly think that Swedish speedway would be better off in the long term if they weren't reliant on so many riders that also race in the Ekstraliga.

Back to fixed points based on finishing positions in the GP. 20 for 1st, then 18, 16, 14, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

The numbers I saw had the region that Wroclaw is capital of (Dolnośląskie) with fairly low numbers of new cases, 16 today. The region with high numbers was Śląskie which has Katowice as its capital.

If the SEC used the new SGP scoring system, I think Madsen would have been crowned champion as soon as he qualified for the Final last night, possibly when he qualified for the semi final. In the SGP scoring format, his 3 wins, especially the first round where he only scored 9 before the final, make a big difference to his points. I prefer the old SGP/current SEC scoring format where every point counts.

Gotta go with the National Champion, surely

You need to dig into the archives of PePe races there

In the past, that would mean that Brady is effectively "dumped" by Leszno. This year with the weird and horrible "covid-19" rules, I'm not sure if that means the same... Can Leszno still call back Brady if they need him, or has he basically been told he's not good enough this year?

He was racing for Rybnik when he got his drugs ban. The points deducted saw them relegated. He said he would return to them after the ban was over but then took the better offer from Lublin.

I don't mind that so much. He's American and that is a normal American English word. It's just the weird and often random pronunciations of names that puts me off

OMG - Sam has actually said Jepsen Jensen a few times instead of Jesper Jensen. This is an incredible development.

You can probably add Italy to the list. Armando wouldn't allow them to be left out, surely. Edit - To add, last years final also had representatives in it from Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and France. One would hope they would all be invited to provide a rider.

Has it been confirmed which 15 Nations get to nominate a rider for this aside from Croatia?

Oh yeah. I completely forgot about Woryna and Smektala

No Lambert or Milik as they are now quarantined due to covid protection measures. Who gets their places if this meeting goes ahead?

Artem already has a Polish passport. The whole Russian SoN winning team now has Polish passports, so Poland can maybe claim to be World Champs as well as Russia.

As with Sky/BT meetings here in the past, there are gaps for commercial breaks, interviews and studio discussions, none of which are included in the clean feed for obvious reasons. As you said, Dave could do with a co- commentator to bounce discussions off of.

Riders clearly not wanting to race.