New Swc Format Needed?

[BigFatDave]

Russia were finalists last season.

I know; I was there. Looking at either them or Team GB to make up the final with Oz, Polska and Denmark.

[RPNY]

I think the current format is fine, much better then a few years ago when there were 3 qualifiers & then a race off.

Definetly need a change of venue tho. the Poles are strong & keep getting home advantage, that to me just doesn't make sense. Sweden should have a final soon, GB deserve a final & the way Russia are going they will be deserving of a final soon also. To keep alternating between Poland & Vojens is a) unfair & a wee bit monotonous...

 

Tex

[maneacat]

I think they should rename it The World 4-Team Tournament - I would like to see larger teams. We and other european nations do not race team speedway based on four men teams and it has always puzzled me why "The World Cup" does!!!

[Mateusz]

Gorzow host the race-off & final next year, from what I read today morning

[iris123]

I think the current format is fine, much better then a few years ago when there were 3 qualifiers & then a race off.

Definetly need a change of venue tho. the Poles are strong & keep getting home advantage, that to me just doesn't make sense. Sweden should have a final soon, GB deserve a final & the way Russia are going they will be deserving of a final soon also. To keep alternating between Poland & Vojens is a) unfair & a wee bit monotonous...

 

Tex

It isn't about deserving a Final.It is about which countries have a promoter willing to take the risk of shelling out for the Final.From the way the FIM seem to work you first need to host one of the quali rounds the previous year in all comps before you get the chance to host a Final.Sweden don't even seem to be ready to host one of the earlier rounds and so far Russia haven't either.Same with football.Countries only get the chance if they put in a good offer to host the World Cup Finals

[stevebrum]

Exactly. Its a World Cup: denying everyone but a favoured few the chance to take part would be ridiculous. I'd love to see the USA back in the mix, and Russia aren't that far away from a Final. Great crowd yesterday, hopefully the same tonight; I'm just wondering who'll be the first prat to whinge about the track.

 

 

Exactly, There are make weights in the Football world cup, why should we make it different!

 

Russia are already a higher seed than Team GB, unfortunately thats just how low we have fallen.

 

As for the part about the track?

 

id say about 19.01

[Grim Reeper]

I think they should rename it The World 4-Team Tournament - I would like to see larger teams. We and other european nations do not race team speedway based on four men teams and it has always puzzled me why "The World Cup" does!!!

 

I totally agree. The only trouble with change is that not many riders know how to team ride so it would still be gate and go by the individuals.

 

Why they cannot have a six/seven man teams and have say two meetings a night and run it over a seven day period on a knock out basis with a semi final and the final held on a neutral track. I think back in the 70's they ran something similar in the UK and it was sponsored by the Daily Mirror.

 

If they continue to hold it in Poland as has been suggested for next year, who is going to bother travelling to support other teams. Apathy prevailed yesterday with the three other teams simply accepting that they will be in the play off even before a wheel had been turned.

 

Lets hope that tonight is a bit more competitive.

[SimonB]

I wonder if there is sufficient supporter interest in making this a 2 or 3 day event at one of the indoor stadiums?

 

Friday to Sunday, two semi finals & a final, tickets available for the whole event. 8 nations involved, most of the worlds top riders and a no rain off guarantee !

[stevebrum]

I wonder if there is sufficient supporter interest in making this a 2 or 3 day event at one of the indoor stadiums?

 

Friday to Sunday, two semi finals & a final, tickets available for the whole event. 8 nations involved, most of the worlds top riders and a no rain off guarantee !

 

 

Like the thinking!

 

However id still prefer it to be week long

[Humphrey Appleby]

Not sure how that would work to be honest but i was thinking about the World pairs they used to run, i think that would be far more competitive. 5-6 countries could probably win that on any given day. I think there was 7 countries in the world pairs final, is that right?

 

Yes, but then it would be a pairs competition rather than a proper team competition. Whilst the team riding aspect was better with the pairs format, there is a reasonable four-team format in riders compete as pairs, but that was scrapped after only a couple of editions because each team only rides in every other heat.

 

A three-team format isn't really very good either, because it's not practical for every rider to meet every other rider unless you run either 12 or 27 heats. The riding order can therefore unduly influence the result in the common, but unbalanced 18-heat 3TTs.

 

Whilst weak teams in the SWC have always been an issue, the 4TT format is at least balanced and provided three of the teams in each meeting are competitive, it doesn't really matter if one mismatched side is included.

[Humphrey Appleby]

We and other european nations do not race team speedway based on four men teams and it has always puzzled me why "The World Cup" does!!!

 

Simply because there would only be 5 or 6 competitive teams if head-to-head matches with 7 or 8 rider teams were used. The other problem is that it would require more meetings and more travelling, as generally speedway meetings held at neutral venues are not economically viable. In addition, it's not practical for the likes of Australia and the US to host home meetings, so they'd always have to ride away.

 

In addition, many countries did (and a lot still do) use the 4TT format for their team competitions, so it's nothing unusual for them at all. And even if head-to-head matches were logistically practical in the SWC, team sizes and heat formats differ from country-to-country, so you'd still need to agree on a common format.

 

The 4TT is a reasonable compromise that gives more nations the opportunity to compete in the SWC, keeps the number of meetings (and thus costs) to a minimum, and solves the problen of certain nations not being able to ride at home.

[Ryan]

I would like to see the Speedway World Cup expanded as well - and not just because I'm American. I would like to see it expanded to 16 teams. The current format, when including the qualifiers has 14 teams. I have it on good authority that Argentina would like to become part of the SWC qualifiers and certainly there is at least one other country out there willing to participate. Perhaps a format as follows:

 

Country A hosts two four-team quarterfinals - Quarterfinal 1 on Day 1 and Quarterfinal 3 on Day 3

Country B hosts two four-team quarterfinals - Quarterfinal 2 on Day 2 and Quarterfinal 4 on Day 4

*The top two in each quarterfinal qualify for the semi-finals to be hosted by the same countries*

 

Country A hosts Semi 1 on Day 5

Country B hosts Semi 2 on Day 6

*The top two in each semi qualify for the SWC Final*

 

Country C hosts SWC Final on Day 8 or 9.

 

 

I agree that the results of some of the quarterfinals would probably be spread out, but isn't this the case with the Soccer World Cup as well? There are certainly countries that we know will never get out of their group. If this is a true Speedway World Cup, then there should be more representation in the final event itself. As others have pointed out already, look at the improvement that Russia has made in the past several years. I think that actually being in the SWC itself, rather than just a qualifier, might inspire some of the national motorcycle associations and domestic sponsors to provide more backing for their respective teams and would improve the quality of their teams. An expanded SWC may be a little rough the first couple years, but if there was eventually 8, 10, or 12 strong teams then the SWC would become quite an event.

Perhaps I am dreaming here.

[Humphrey Appleby]

I would like to see it expanded to 16 teams. The current format, when including the qualifiers has 14 teams. I have it on good authority that Argentina would like to become part of the SWC qualifiers and certainly there is at least one other country out there willing to participate.

 

The fundamental problem with the format you suggest, would be the extreme mismatches in the quarter-finals, plus the problem in speedway that meetings without local interest are invariably financial disasters. The SWC is not really comparable with the World Cup in this respect, and the difference between the 1st and 16th ranked team in international speedway is probably akin to Spain playing Luxembourg or similar.

 

I think it's better all round to have a multi-stage competition whereby some countries are seeded to the later stages so that everyone competes at a level appropriate to their relative strength. There is a 4TT format that can accommodate 5 teams per meeting, so you could easily expand the competition to 16 or even 18 teams using the current structure. If you went to 3 or even 4 qualifying rounds, you could accommodate up 20 teams if necessary.

[JC!]

I think that one idea that could be taken from the various series of the 70's would be to have a Rest of the World side. You could then bring in the likes of Zagar and Hancock to lead what would be a much more attractive team than some of the also rans that currently participate.

[Ryan]

The fundamental problem with the format you suggest, would be the extreme mismatches in the quarter-finals, plus the problem in speedway that meetings without local interest are invariably financial disasters. The SWC is not really comparable with the World Cup in this respect, and the difference between the 1st and 16th ranked team in international speedway is probably akin to Spain playing Luxembourg or similar.

 

I think it's better all round to have a multi-stage competition whereby some countries are seeded to the later stages so that everyone competes at a level appropriate to their relative strength. There is a 4TT format that can accommodate 5 teams per meeting, so you could easily expand the competition to 16 or even 18 teams using the current structure. If you went to 3 or even 4 qualifying rounds, you could accommodate up 20 teams if necessary.

 

I stated that there would be mismatches in the opening round, but I think that they experience could eventually raise the level of the lower countries. The example that has been brought here several times has been Russia over the past few years.

 

I agree that there could be a financial burden there, but I'll be there are venues that are willing to host a second quarterfinal without their team if they know they'll get a semifinal that will certainly include their team. One bad meeting would probably worth having a second good meeting to the hosts.

 

We also know that the Soccer World Cup doesn't really have the 32 best teams in the world. The difference between 1st and the 32nd team in the Soccer World Cup is probably just as much a mismatch as the 1st and 16th ranked teams in speedway. Wasn't there countries that were ranked in the 60s in this year's World Cup?

 

Like I stated in my original post, I am probably dreaming. :-)

[CMV06]

I think that one idea that could be taken from the various series of the 70's would be to have a Rest of the World side. You could then bring in the likes of Zagar and Hancock to lead what would be a much more attractive team than some of the also rans that currently participate.

 

 

I love that idea, brilliant

Edited July 26, 2010 by CMV06

[Humphrey Appleby]

I stated that there would be mismatches in the opening round, but I think that they experience could eventually raise the level of the lower countries. The example that has been brought here several times has been Russia over the past few years.

 

Before 1985, I think all teams did start in quarter-finals, but even though the Intercontinental/Continental division tempered the worst mismatches, the competitive imbalances were probably the main reason why the format was changed. That was also in the days before the breakup of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia which are now represented by multiple teams.

 

Russia (and the Soviet Union before it) has always been one of the better 'minor' speedway countries, and reached a number of World Finals in the past. It would be better to look at the results of smaller countries which have put out teams in the past.

 

I agree that there could be a financial burden there, but I'll be there are venues that are willing to host a second quarterfinal without their team if they know they'll get a semifinal that will certainly include their team.

 

Staging a tournament with eight teams means twice the amount of expenses, and at least one and possibly two meetings wouldn't feature the home team. What might work is staging the quarter-finals as a double header, but again there's still twice the expenses.

 

We also know that the Soccer World Cup doesn't really have the 32 best teams in the world. The difference between 1st and the 32nd team in the Soccer World Cup is probably just as much a mismatch as the 1st and 16th ranked teams in speedway. Wasn't there countries that were ranked in the 60s in this year's World Cup?

 

The World Cup admittedly doesn't include the best 32 teams, but nearly all finalists these days are able to make a match of things. The competition has the money to fund proper preparation, and of course most of the players in the finals will be full-time professionals. Moreover, even a football team ranked 60th in the world is still amongst the top third (as there's 202+ teams). By comparison, a speedway team ranked 16th is about two-thirds of the way down, but most countries ranked below about 20th only have a handful of riders and couldn't hope to enter even a half-competitive side at the lowest level. I think there were never more than 20 countries represented in the World Pairs, even though speedway is probably ridden in about 26 countries.

 

[bTW - I underestimated Luxembourg who are currently ranked 116 by FIFA. The equivalent of the highest ranked nation riding against 16th in speedway (assuming 26 speedway countries) is Spain against the world footballing powers of Singapore.. ]

Edited July 26, 2010 by Humphrey Appleby

[superguest]

Now I guess they are satisfied staging a GP. In addition, 2006 would've been projected as possibly Rickardsson's last season (which it was, although he bowed out before the SWC) and since then Sweden haven't been as competitive as before.

 

They won it with David Ruud in his place at Poole in 2004!

Edited July 26, 2010 by superguest

[Woz01]

Yes, but then it would be a pairs competition rather than a proper team competition. Whilst the team riding aspect was better with the pairs format, there is a reasonable four-team format in riders compete as pairs, but that was scrapped after only a couple of editions because each team only rides in every other heat.

 

A three-team format isn't really very good either, because it's not practical for every rider to meet every other rider unless you run either 12 or 27 heats. The riding order can therefore unduly influence the result in the common, but unbalanced 18-heat 3TTs.

 

Whilst weak teams in the SWC have always been an issue, the 4TT format is at least balanced and provided three of the teams in each meeting are competitive, it doesn't really matter if one mismatched side is included.

 

 

 

I agree with you but one day smaller speedway nations might have riders that are competitve with the best. I think it would be good for speedway if a country that has a couple of decent riders could ride in a world event it might promote the sport a bit more in other countries!

[ladyluck]

I think the main reason Russia are coming to the fore is that their young riders are now getting experience in the Polish leagues, which then leads on to the Swedish leagues. Sayfutdinov has been at Bydgoszcz since he was sixteen.