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Swedish Grand Prix


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Looking forward to my first visit to Gothenburg, very good Wildcard to add to an excellent SGP field

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Roll of Honour

 

1995..T Knudsen..(DEN)..Linkoping

1996..B Hamill..(USA)..Linkoping

1997..T Gollob..(POL)..Linkoping

1998..T Rickardsson..(SWE)..Linkoping

1999..M Loram..(GBR)..Linkoping

2000..J Crump..(AUS)..Linkoping

2001..J Crump..(AUS)..Stockholm

2002..T Rickardsson..(SWE)..Stockholm

2003..R Sullivan..(AUS)..Avesta

2004..L Adams..(AUS)..Stockholm

2005..J Crump..(AUS)..Eskilstuna

2006..J Crump..(AUS)..Eskilstuna

2007..L Adams..(AUS)..Eskilstuna

2008..R Holta..(POL)..Gothenburg

2009..E Sayfutdinov..(RUS)..Gothenburg

2010..K Bjerre..(DEN)..Gothenburg

 

Uninteresting Facts

 

Gothenburg was founded in 1621 by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus.

He is popularly known as "Gustavus Adolphus the Great" or the "Lion of the North".

Gustavus Adolphus forged Sweden into a Great Power of Europe during the Thirty Years War.

He was mortally wounded during the Battle of Lutzen in 1632.

The Grand Prix is being held in the Ullevi Stadium, which is the largest stadium in Scandinavia.

Roughly translated, Ullevi means "Temple of Ull".

Ull was - probably still is - the Norse god of winter, death, skiing, the chase, overall combat, archery, hunting and trapping, and snowshoes.

The Ullevi Stadium hosted nine world finals during the period 1964-1991.

And world champions crowned in Gothenburg were Barry Briggs (1964 and 1966), Ivan Mauger (1968 and 1977), Ole Olsen (1971), Anders Michanek (1974), Michael Lee (1980), Erik Gundersen (1984) and Jan O Pedersen (1991).

The Ullevi Stadium has hosted six previous Grands Prix.

And the winners were Leigh Adams (2002), Ryan Sullivan (2003), Hans Andersen (2004), Rune Holta (2008), Emil Sayfutdinov (2009) and Kenneth Bjerre (2010).

Which means that no rider has gone on to be world champion in the season he won the Grand Prix at Ullevi.

The record crowd at Ullevi was 64,312 for a Bruce Springsteen concert in 1985.

The reverberations of Mr Springsteen's music and the crowd almost caused the structural collapse of the stadium.

But, fear not, the stadium was massively strengthened by its municipal owners afterwards.

And Mr Springsteen has been back several times with no adverse effects.

The Gothenburg track is the longest in the GPs, although the length changes from time to time.

This year it's going to be 404 metres.

In 2008 it was a massive 416 metres.

The track record is 69.40 seconds.

It is jointly held by Jason Crump and Rune Holta.

 

From Gothenburg to Prague

 

As noted above, Gothenburg was founded by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus.

Gustavus Adolphus was mortally wounded at the Battle of Lutzen in 1632.

The opposing forces at the battle were commanded by Albrecht von Wallenstein.

Albrecht von Wallenstein built (not personally, of course) the largest palace in Prague (Wallenstein Palace, now the seat of the Czech senate).

Edited by ladyluck
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As noted above, Gothenburg was founded by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus.

Gustavus Adolphus was mortally wounded at the Battle of Lutzen in 1632.

The opposing forces at the battle were commanded by Albrecht von Wallenstein.

Albrecht von Wallenstein built (not personally, of course) the largest palace in Prague (Wallenstein Palace, now the seat of the Czech senate).

If i remember rightly,didn't they start the war by throwing some guys out of a window in Prague?Did see a programme on Wallenstein a while back.Got a bit too big for his boots in the end.Nice little background history there.

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If i remember rightly,didn't they start the war by throwing some guys out of a window in Prague?Did see a programme on Wallenstein a while back.Got a bit too big for his boots in the end.Nice little background history there.

 

Yes, the Thirty Years' War was started by the protestant Czechs throwing a couple of catholics out of one of Prague Castle's windows in the so-called "Second Defenestration of Prague". The Czech's elected their "winter king" but were defeated at the Battle of the White Mountain. Wallenstein was born protestant, but changed to catholic in order to marry a wealthy widow. Like you said, he grew too big for his boots and was murdered on the orders of the Habsburg emperor whom he nominally served. The British embassy in Prague was, apparently, part of the booty paid to one of his assassins.

 

Edit:

 

By the way, in case anyone is wondering, the victims of the defenestraion survived. It was put down to devine intervention. God had placed the dung heap they landed in there.

Edited by ladyluck
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Weather forecasts have changed again it now says rain during most of Saturday.

 

http://www.smhi.se/v...&redirect=false

http://www.yr.no/ste...tidsvarsel.html

http://www.klart.se/...3%B6teborg.html

 

If it's wet AJ will win it.

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Most of the weather websites now seem to be showing rain Friday afternoon but dry on Saturday. Really looking forward to my first overseas GP and hope that my flight from Manchester in the morning is nice and smooth!!

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Do any of our Swedish friends have news regarding as to whether advance tickets are selling like the proverbial hotcakes, or is it likely to be a turn up on the day affair?. The latter of which would possibly be affected by the weather if it is bad.

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No problem with tickets. just turn up. By betting is that it will be about a quarter to a third full.

2008 they sold 16,000 tickets up to Friday night. Although the weather was glorious they only got another 1,000 on the match day. The trouble is Goteburg is not a speedway city, although it is a terrific place.

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No problem with tickets. just turn up. By betting is that it will be about a quarter to a third full.

2008 they sold 16,000 tickets up to Friday night. Although the weather was glorious they only got another 1,000 on the match day. The trouble is Goteburg is not a speedway city, although it is a terrific place.

 

Just done a quick preliminary search of the local media for the Grand Prix, also aided by Google translate. Unfortunately, it looks like the sport suffers the same ignorance from the media it does all over the world!

 

This site http://gt.expressen.se appears to cover Gothenburg and this one sport http://www.expressen.se/sport/. Despite a long scrollable page picturing many different sports, including Table Tennis! no sign of speedway anywhere. Certainly no mention of the speedway Grand Prix that is being staged in Gothenburg!

 

Do the BSI make no attempt to heavily access and advertise in the local population and city centre of GP's?

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