Deano Posted August 3, 2010 Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 You've got to want to practice. As Mateusz points out, the Polish clubs don't just allow their Poles to practice. I recall the 2005 SWC, when the final was in Wroclaw. During the race-off Neil Middleditch was asked aabout the official practice and as I remember it he stated that Nicholls would not be there as he had ridden at Wroclaw a few weeks earlier. Needless to say, all the Polish team were there for the practice session. I'd say the answer to your question is professionalism. A good point... but then there is the roote cause as to why the other nations want to practice? Do their respective organisations insist in order to be selected again? Do their respective organisations pay them to do so via sponsorship? Joking apart all those that represented Team GB are professionals, but also business people in their own right.. maybe that is the problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacqueline Posted August 3, 2010 Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 (edited) Lars has taken some photos from Race-off and SWC Final in Vojens which you can follow HERE also a few one from saturday: cancelled final Edited August 3, 2010 by Jacqueline Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARK246 Posted August 3, 2010 Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 A good point... but then there is the roote cause as to why the other nations want to practice? Do their respective organisations insist in order to be selected again? Do their respective organisations pay them to do so via sponsorship? Joking apart all those that represented Team GB are professionals, but also business people in their own right.. maybe that is the problem? It's not only at international level the Brits are like this though. Two seasons ago a British rider was signed to ride for a team in Sweden, he was given the chance to practice at their home track with help from the teams top riders. He told the team manager, he 'was a professional rider and didn't need to practice, as he could score points anywhere'. During the season after scoring 7 points from 3 meetings, 2 of them at their home track, he was dropped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colincooke Posted August 3, 2010 Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 (edited) A good point... but then there is the roote cause as to why the other nations want to practice? Do their respective organisations insist in order to be selected again? Do their respective organisations pay them to do so via sponsorship? Joking apart all those that represented Team GB are professionals, but also business people in their own right.. maybe that is the problem? Another problem is track time as i said,that is down to respective clubs. As far as i know there's only scunthorpe & king's lynn that give that regular in the UK. Edited August 3, 2010 by colincooke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladyluck Posted August 3, 2010 Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 Another problem is track time as i said,that is down to respective clubs. As far as i know there's only scunthorpe & king's lynn that give that regular in the UK. Are they open to all? If they are, how often are Ben Barker, Lewis Bridger and Edward Kennett there putting in the practice laps? Everyone has heard the stories of Tomasz Gollob riding countless laps around the Bydgoszcz track as a young rider. As has been said before, Polish clubs encourage all their riders to put in the practice laps. Didn't Wroclaw allow Crump a lot of practice time ahead of the Leszno GP? The curious thing is that often British fans look down upon the Polish practice time. And it's not just the fans. I remember Rosco going off on one when Gorzow insisted that Przemyslaw Pawicki attend a practice session earlier in the season. "It was in preparation for an away meeting, what's the point?" was the general cry from Brandon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deano Posted August 3, 2010 Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 The curious thing is that often British fans look down upon the Polish practice time. And it's not just the fans. I remember Rosco going off on one when Gorzow insisted that Przemyslaw Pawicki attend a practice session earlier in the season. "It was in preparation for an away meeting, what's the point?" was the general cry from Brandon. I'm not a follower of Polish speedway, although I may begin to from now on. Most of the riders who ride in the British leagues are very rarely local to their home track. Are Polish team riders from the local vicinity of their respective tracks? Obviously Polish riders will and do travel to ride in their contracted Swedish/Danish/German/UK teams. But if you are local to your main Polish club it would make practice easier and if teams insist on practice (like a footballers training and fitness session) then it could be a culture thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mateusz Posted August 4, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 (edited) There world cup wins will forever be tarnished by the fact he was part of the team ... and they can try to justify it for as long as they want ... they can't. NO ONE cares here in Poland about the fact that Holta was not born in Poland, nobody seems to have a problem with this either. The whole Holta story was maybe a bit hard to accept at the very beginning, years ago (as it was something totally new) but now we've got so used to the fact he represents Poland at the international stage that we simply don't mind and treat him like other sportsmen representing our country in international games. Our World Cup wins may forever be tarnished for some jealous guys like you, but not for us. We are happy and we are proud I'm not a follower of Polish speedway, although I may begin to from now on. Most of the riders who ride in the British leagues are very rarely local to their home track. Are Polish team riders from the local vicinity of their respective tracks? Obviously Polish riders will and do travel to ride in their contracted Swedish/Danish/German/UK teams. But if you are local to your main Polish club it would make practice easier and if teams insist on practice (like a footballers training and fitness session) then it could be a culture thing? Until the end of the 80s most speedway riders in Poland had been riding in their hometown clubs. Any transfer like Plech's move from Gorzow to Gdansk was something UNUSUAL and huge WOW. But since the communism ended here and everything became much easier (mostly in terms of communication and transport) transfers between the clubs slowly became something normal. Currently, many riders (about 2/3 out of the Polish riders? - I reckon) ride in teams which are not their local ones. Most of them have to drive each weekend to take part in practices and matches. The main difference between UK and Poland as for practising is that it's rather obligatory here - usually it's Friday before another league match. Of course, if someone's got a meeting abroad (or a GP practice that day) he doesn't have to show up at their team's practice (Pawlicki's case was an exception - Gorzow manager is just stupid) but all the riders who are free that day are supposed to take part in the practice - absence is perceived as "I don't care" attitude or laziness (of course unless you are sick or have any other serious reason - same as in any other job). Usually it's not a problem for anyone, though - riders want to practice and get ready for their Sunday's matches cause it's a part of their work - the more they practice and work on their bikes the better they're prepared and the more money they may earn on Sunday, simple as. Edited August 4, 2010 by Mateusz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trees Posted August 4, 2010 Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 Poland, Sweden and Denmark are very lucky to have speedway only tracks, it gives them such an advantage over the UK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuddenSam15 Posted August 4, 2010 Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 The day I am jealous of titles won by default is the day I pack in speedway .... as I say try to justify it all you like .... you can not do it ... Holta is from Norway and you would not have won without him Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trees Posted August 4, 2010 Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 Fancy putting him in before Poles, I bet there are some a bit annoyed about that??!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deano Posted August 4, 2010 Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 To be honest I don't really care if they won with Holta in the team or not.. if The Team GB manager got a knock on his door saying Emil Sayfutdinov is now on a UK passport due to marrying is girlfield Brenda Pissweed.. he would be in the team like a shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawel115 Posted August 4, 2010 Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 Trees some Polish speedway tracks share venue with football hence the size of some of them(you have to fit football field inside,goalposts are removed before speedway meeting) my home track Rzeszow is one example at that track team practices are held on regular basis during speedway season.When i lived in Rzeszow they use to practice at least once a week cant speak for other teams i would assume it also happens elswhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trees Posted August 4, 2010 Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 Trees some Polish speedway tracks share venue with football hence the size of some of them Really, didn't realise that, can the riders still get plenty of practice on the tracks then or do they only stick to official practice day and race day? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spook Posted August 4, 2010 Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 The day I am jealous of titles won by default is the day I pack in speedway .... as I say try to justify it all you like .... you can not do it ... Holta is from Norway and you would not have won without him where have you been? I dont agree with the way speedway allows riders to jump ship but this is not a new thing with riders in general.... aside from all the kiwis years ago.. it happened with my hero Marvyn Cox when he took out a German license.......... and the Rune thing is not new at all...how many years are we talking about now? 5? The Poles thoroughly deserved their win ... and as a wise poster pointed out before.... if it wasnt Rune then it was going to be one of many other guys more than capable of showing up their opposite numbers re: the brits and practise ...... it could well have something to do with practise but that goes full circle back to one of the core issues within the sport in this country and that is the location of the stadiums and the knock on effects of council approved track time.............. the clubs need to move further out into the country to be able to offer more practise time of course in the mean time they could help out in other logical ways... such as fixing assessed averages a bit more sensibly..... offering the same financial support to the brits as are offered for flights, accomodation etc..... a nationwide training scheme to bring more faces into the sport Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deano Posted August 4, 2010 Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 my home track Rzeszow is one example at that track team practices are held on regular basis during speedway season. Like trees says we have several issues that would stop this from happening: Availability of stadiums - As speedway is the tennant and shared with other sports some tracks can only get access to the stadium a few hours before their meetings. Planning laws - I order to get speedway at the venue in the first place, the speedway is only only allowed to use the stadium for 28 days per year for 2 1/2 hours! There are exceptions of course, but would an opposing team let one of it's challengers use their track to practice on. I doubt it. It seems that Polish local government have a much higher value of speedway within the comunity than our own. Our local government in many cases perceive it to be a nusense and would block any such applications to allow our teams to practice. Which is a shame as it proves the Polish system works very very well. We should learn from it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trees Posted August 4, 2010 Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 We should learn from it. I'm sure all our promoters would like to run their tracks like Poland and/or Sweden/Denmark but as you say it's impossible. What all our promoters could do here would be to invite councillors to speedway all the time so they can see that speedway is good for their communities perhaps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawel115 Posted August 5, 2010 Report Share Posted August 5, 2010 Rzeszow been sharing that stadium with football for long time(about 60 years) now with new sponsors every couple of years team name of speedway club sometimes changes but it was Stal Rzeszow for years and Stal had different sport sections football section,speedway section etc but same team logo and team colours(that still exists to this day)as for other Polish clubs maybe Mateusz knows more but i am pretty much sure Bydgoszcz track got a footbal field inside and identical situation to Rzeszow with club having diff sections speedway and football and share team colours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mateusz Posted August 5, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2010 Yes indeed - Polonia Bydgoszcz stadium is a speedway track + football pitch so it's shared by both sections of the same sports club. However, the football team plays in some low division (4th I think) so there's no serious clash with practice/matches times - it's not used 24/7, needless to say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveccm Posted August 5, 2010 Report Share Posted August 5, 2010 At last I've watched the SKY recording of the meeting after reading the adverse criticism. I expected a pretty dire performance but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was led to believe from this forum. Bomber was obviously gutted at his exclusion but he has nothing to feel bad about. He came back fighting so it might even make him a more determined rider now. The GB team were on a par with the other finalists unlike our footballers who weren't. Every team had last places (or "at the back" as they tend to say) but some feel it necessary to pick up on ours. So it's not a team for the future but I thought they did us proud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deano Posted August 5, 2010 Report Share Posted August 5, 2010 I expected a pretty dire performance but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was led to believe from this forum. Hi Dave, I hope it wasn't me who gave that impression, personally I think the lads did over and above what was expected of them and there was some good racing too. The point I'm trying to make is there is a huge gap between fourth and winning, if Harris, Nicholls or Richardson had picked up an injury just before the World Cup... what do we have as back up? The Danes especially and the Poles wouldn't have any kind of problem, if they suffered injuries of a similar nature, they'd still remain competitive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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