IainB

Who did he make this pledge to? I think I saw Bomber on Twitter saying he loved the track where it's going to be staged... and that was before Woffy's injury!

Is it being run on cumulative points basis over the 2 days or will countries be awarded points based on where they finish on each day... so as to bring it into line with other sports?

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the amateurish coverage of the Gorzow vs Wroclaw by Premier Sports, reading the above I realise that a couple of heats weren't captured by the host broadcaster but Premier didn't bother with any editing and just showed from heat 7 onwards!

I agree, but the FIM have responsibility for the whole of speedway not just Poland

You're kind of proving my point that the tail is wagging the dog

they've now got 100,000,000 in the bank though

She was good at TV presenting, that's why she's gone on to create a career for herself outside of sport, she had little to no speedway experience and was asking the same questions at the end of her speedway career that she was at the beginning. Suzi was and is a MotoGP presenter I'm not sure she had any experience of speedway before she started presenting

All very safe expected picks... maybe it's time to look at a radical overhaul of the SGP with the new rights holders. It seems to me that the only reason that 16 riders are included in a world final/ GP series is because mathematically this works out that each rider meets every other rider once over the course of 20 heats. Over the course of the World Championship there has generally never really been a rider been a rider from outside of the top 8 who have gone on to win it (although no doubt somebody will come up with an exception Szczakiel, Muller). Maybe it's time to cut the field down to 8-10 riders with each rider meeting each other multiple times, imagine watching Tai vs Bartek 3,4 or 5 times a night instead of NKI vs Lindback vs Michelsen vs Zagar who with the best will in the world are never going to be World Champions, especially under a GP series

Maybe time for the FIM to start flexing its muscles because at the moment the tail is wagging the dog

Every female that's ever appeared on an English language speedway broadcast except for Natalie Quirk and Marcelina Whatsername

While I tend to agree with you to be fair NKI did qualify for this years series by right from the 2019 GP Challenge as did Zagar and Fricke. The real strange decision was to offer Lindback a wild card slot and it not to have been offered to Aspgren. Like I've said elsewhere I'd like to see Loktaev in, blew it in this years challenge and was only 1 point adrift of possible qualification in 2019

I'm answering PHILRISING's question of where else it could have been held and I offered Germany as an alternative, as far as I know there are no travel restrictions, they are letting crowds into football events, it's just over the border from Poland and it's a neutral venue

That's great for you and the mental work out is obviously part of watching the event for you... it's not for everybody though. I and many others don't sit at home watching it on TV filling a programme in, I don't even have a programme when I attend live so I rely on what the commentator or announcer is saying (or Speedway Updates when I'm at a track). Put yourself in the position of a floating watcher and imagine how it appears to them.

I doubt Lublin are financing the meeting either, nobody knows the financing arrangements but I would suspect BSI/IMG are underwriting the event in order to fulfil TV contracts as they probably have with the GP series playing to less than half full houses. So why not hold it in a neutral country? How many fans are being let into sporting events in Germany?

Whatever the points scoring system surely the point of a World Championship GP series is to find out who the best rider in the world is for that year. If you accept that then surely you must choose the best mathematical points scoring system to find that rider. You could run 20 "qualifying heats" and then just draw lots afterwards to award points, that maybe the rules for that season it doesn't mean you're finding the best rider though. Am I right in thinking that riders have made a semi final with 6 points in the past? if so taking things to an extreme 8 x 6pts in each round with 2nd in each semi and last in each final means 64 points, where as 8 last place finals using the current system bags you 112 points. I'm no mathematician and this is very much back of the fag packet stuff but 112 would have got you 4th place this year where as 64 would have gotten you 10th. The powers that be need to decide if they're trying to find the best rider in the world or whether they're trying to make each GP a world final

Perfect then... a neutral venue for once, to determine worthy winners

it all proved pretty academic in the end as Bartek finished 16 points clear of Tai where under the old system he would have finished 18 ahead. What it did add was real jeopardy in the final round making it more akin to a one off world final than a GP series. What it did show was that nobody really knew what was going on and who had to score what as the commentary team showed when trying to explain what would happen if Bartek didn't make the final, that it would depend who finished where in the semi-finals and then look back through the programme to see who had beaten who in which heat on count back, those of us watching on TV had the luxury of somebody trying to explain it to us... I bet if you were in the stadium you wouldn't have a clue who had actually won... fortunately Bartek made the final and won a well deserved 2nd title.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total Pts +/- % Old Rank New Rank Rank Diff Bartosz Zmarzlik 11 14 20 14 17 19 12 14 121 133 12 10% 1 1 0 Tai Woffinden 12 15 12 11 12 16 13 12 103 117 14 14% 2 2 0 Freddie Lindgren 10 11 14 17 9 15 11 16 103 117 14 14% 2 2 0 Maciej Janowski 17 19 8 9 6 10 16 17 102 107 5 5% 4 4 0 Leon Madsen 13 7 12 15 9 9 9 10 84 89 5 6% 6 5 1 Jason Doyle 5 3 12 16 13 12 9 9 79 87 8 10% 7 6 1 Artem Laguta 20 13 7 3 13 6 9 14 85 84 -1 -1% 5 7 -2 Emil Sayfutdinov 11 6 6 13 11 7 11 10 75 81 6 8% 9 8 1 Martin Vaculik 11 4 13 12 13 11 10 5 79 78 -1 -1% 7 9 -2 Max Fricke 2 8 4 8 8 7 16 4 57 64 7 12% 10 10 0 Matej Zagar 6 4 8 5 4 7 8 3 45 46 1 2% 11 11 0 Patryk Dudek 5 7 3 1 7 6 5 6 40 39 -1 -3% 12 12 0 Niels-Kristian Iversen 3 11 6 3 5 3 0 2 33 32 -1 -3% 13 13 0 Mikkel Michelsen 5 7 5 2 7 3 2 2 33 32 -1 -3% 13 13 0 Antonio Lindback 1 1 2 3 2 5 1 7 22 22 0 0% 15 15 0 Gleb Chugunov 6 8 14 16 2 14% 16 16 0 Jack Holder 6 7 13 12 -1 -8% 17 17 0 Anders Thomsen 4 6 10 10 0 0% 18 18 0 Vaclav Milik 0 2 2 1 -1 -50% 19 19 0

I'm inclined to agree with you but you have to ask yourself what was the reasoning behind changing to top 6 from top 8 if you're not going to include the likes of Lidsey, Chuggers, Holder, Loktaev etc.

ruled him out for this year, but he wasn't going to get a pick this year anyway, it remains to be seen what nationality he'll be next year

Germany?

No I don't, I'll admit that but there is a difference between cricketing countries and countries that play cricket. I would probably define a cricketing country as one that has some kind of sustained professional league.

Winners & Losers after the final round: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total Pts +/- % Old Rank New Rank Rank Diff Bartosz Zmarzlik 11 14 20 14 17 19 12 14 121 133 12 10% 1 1 0 Tai Woffinden 12 15 12 11 12 16 13 12 103 117 14 14% 2 2 0 Freddie Lindgren 10 11 14 17 9 15 11 16 103 117 14 14% 2 2 0 Maciej Janowski 17 19 8 9 6 10 16 17 102 107 5 5% 4 4 0 Leon Madsen 13 7 12 15 9 9 9 10 84 89 5 6% 6 5 1 Jason Doyle 5 3 12 16 13 12 9 9 79 87 8 10% 7 6 1 Artem Laguta 20 13 7 3 13 6 9 14 85 84 -1 -1% 5 7 -2 Emil Sayfutdinov 11 6 6 13 11 7 11 10 75 81 6 8% 9 8 1 Martin Vaculik 11 4 13 12 13 11 10 5 79 78 -1 -1% 7 9 -2 Max Fricke 2 8 4 8 8 7 16 4 57 64 7 12% 10 10 0 Matej Zagar 6 4 8 5 4 7 8 3 45 46 1 2% 11 11 0 Patryk Dudek 5 7 3 1 7 6 5 6 40 39 -1 -3% 12 12 0 Niels-Kristian Iversen 3 11 6 3 5 3 0 2 33 32 -1 -3% 13 13 0 Mikkel Michelsen 5 7 5 2 7 3 2 2 33 32 -1 -3% 13 13 0 Antonio Lindback 1 1 2 3 2 5 1 7 22 22 0 0% 15 15 0 Gleb Chugunov 6 8 14 16 2 14% 16 16 0 Jack Holder 6 7 13 12 -1 -8% 17 17 0 Anders Thomsen 4 6 10 10 0 0% 18 18 0 Vaclav Milik 0 2 2 1 -1 -50% 19 19 0

Was it Loktaev that blew it in the GP Challenge? For me it doesn't really matter what nationality he is, I think of rather see the 4th place from the challenge or Gleb than the likes of Dudek again I thought he'd made a semi (s) before? Could be wrong

I think Fricke will get another year, the pressure is certainly on him now though Artem is bloody fast when in front, looks like a novice when he's behind though, If Greg ain't bothered it's Gleb for me... and it looks like there's a whole host of others coming in the pipeline, not many people have mentioned (was it?) Loktaev who all but qualified in the GP Challenge until he blew it. Russia look like they could be a dominant force in World Speedway if they could stop all the major events being held on Polish tracks