HenryW

I'd love to do the final...Tried soooo hard a couple of years ago when the mighty Falubaz won, but the weather did us over...So much effort put into getting tickets, transport and hotels for Torun and then ZG only to be thwarted at every turn by the weather. I was glad I didn't try last year...No need to see Leszno win so easily I'll see how the play-offs go and then look into trying to do something this year if Falubaz are looking good again

Both of them raced in a Czech League match for Pardubice yesterday, so it looks OK for them.

Interesting that Roman Povazhny is still listed in the team. Are Balakovo paying for him to attend the match when they wont pay for Emil, is he paying for himself out of some sense of National pride or will the Russians actually front up with just 3 riders?

That's unfortunate and pretty poor planning from the FIM. Germany would be far more competitive with Smoli involved in the SWC.

I see that Poland have now announced their team for Kings Lynn. Tomasz Gollob Jaroslaw Hampel Janusz Kolodziej Piotr Protasiewicz Krzysztof Kasprzak Interesting to see that Kasprzak has received a place. I really expected Pawlicki to get the nod ahead of him. Germany have also declared their 5 for the match in Vojens. Kevin Woelbert Max Dilger Tobias Busch Matias Schultz Tobias Kroner The obvious question around that squad is why Martin Smolinski isn't taking part.

As with Poland, Russia have only named their 10 man squad so far. Their 10 men to choose from are: Darkin, Gafurov, Gizatullin, Kharchenko, Kudryashov, Laguta x2, Povazhny, Sayfutdinov and Tarasenko. Hopefully the visa applications are already in or it could be a fairly weak Russian team. Darkin, Gafurov, Povazhny and Sayfutdinov are all sorted for entry to the UK already...I wonder if they would be allowed to add Bondarenko as a late replacement

The UK is not part of the Schengen agreement. For the rest of the EU they have free travel once they have their visa for one Country (presumably Latvia or Poland). To come to the UK they need a different visa.

How did Dino Kovacic look today? I don't think he has actually raced in Poland much before...maybe only 1 or 2 matches, so it seems a great result for him considering some of the riders who finished below him.

What is amazing is that you believe he had any chance at all if he had followed your suggestion. The only way he would have won by following your suggestion is if Holder and Hancock ran into each other or both their bikes failed.

So after today's 2nd semi final, the 14 regular riders for the World U21 series are known. Poland are heavily represented, but Sweden are the only other Nation with more than one representative. Unsurprisingly, after Josh Auty's first semi final injury, Britain have none. Australia Darcy Ward Croatia Dino Kovacic Denmark Michael Jepsen Jensen Poland Patryk Dudek Oskar Fajfer Maciej Janowski Przemyslaw Pawlicki Piotr Pawlicki Bartosz Zmarzlik Slovakia Martin Vaculik Sweden Dennis Andersson Simon Gustafsson Russia Vadim Tarasenko Ukraine Aleksandr Loktaev

That of course makes the assumption that he was to blame for the late paperwork, IF the paperwork was late in being provided. One would imagine he would require to have some documentation from IMG to prove he was competing in the event. It may well have been them that were slow to provide him with this. Just offering an alternative viewpoint

Harsh on Sky that. The graphic that showed Artem on 30 was the official SGP one rather than a Sky one. Edit - I see you updated your post to recognise this fact while I was slowly typing on the phone

Well, the Laguta's were born in Bolshoy Kamen, which is a closed City due to being a particularly sensitive naval base...so you never know

I would think that not being allowed into the Country that the meeting was being held in would be considered "force majeure", unless it can be proven that Artem was negligent in his efforts to obtain a visa.

2nd of July I believe (as the sub heading says). And to answer myself...Apparently Max isn't going to be ready in time, so 17 year old Andrej Lebedev will be taking the wild card position in Daugavpils. While down in Croatia another 17 year old, Dino Kovacic, takes the wild card place for the Gorican round.

Emil (although he almost certainly uses his Polish passport for racing here) and Renat Gafurov.

Assuming he is fit, it's surely fairly safe to expect "Mad Max" to be taking this place? I was wondering why he hadn't been in the qualifiers until I realised one of the semi's was in Daugavpils.

He has already withdrawn from the event. The SGP site has confirmed that Zorro will race.

Have Australia only officially named a 6 rider squad then? If they have, what happens should a couple of riders pick up injuries? Are they allowed to add to the squad at any time?

If I am reading things right, and remembering my national federations correctly, Australia didn't even get what they asked for this year (although neither did Russia). I don't think the number of Russian's in the qualifiers is the biggest anomaly. They do have 2 riders in the SGP series this year and provided 3 of the riders in the SGP qualifying final last year, including the eventual winner. The Czech Republic receiving 6 places seems the most out of place to me. Considering Russia and Czech Republic both asked for 8 places, why are GB content with only 5? Why aren't we asking for more? Even Slovenia and Germany asked for more places than us!!

Agree 100%. Another stupid decision by the Brit authorities. The road to the SGP is already 1 year behind current form. Why are we insisting on making it 2 years behind? Can we not follow the example of other countries and hold our National qualifiers before the SGP qualy's start or leave a chance to make sensible, form related picks at the time?

Any comments on why Artem Vodjakov only took one race? Was he so bad that they just left him out the rest of the match or what? He was such a great talent before his injury and "problems"...I'm hoping he can get himself back to the form he was showing when he was 16/17.

Unfortunate if there were problems with the booking website, but I guess that after the fast sale of tickets last year there was a massive load on the servers this year leading to problems...Yes this maybe could have been predicted, but it's always difficult to predict server load for something like this and having masses of spare capacity to cover all eventualities can be very expensive. As for the confirmation mail...I wonder how many languages the Cardiff ticket confirmations get sent out in?

Honestly, I don't think it is understandable. It's not like it's shock news that the meeting is being held there, they knew the venue when they entered the competition. Having entered and qualified, I hope they are severely penalised if they don't race in the Final.

They were doing a pretty good job for a couple of laps, but he was just too clever and determined for them