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International Best Pairs - 8th June (eurosport)


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They?

 

Isn't that the system that's used in our own Best Pairs competitions?

 

Right, they (the Poles) "borrowed" this scoring system from the British. This was the first time that they used it here on the coninent.

 

Another one of the many "new inventions" that make British speedway so exciting, like the joker, golden double, guest riders, green helmet colours and so on.

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Guest riders, regardless of the cicumstances, in a competition for national teams, completely devalue that competition.

 

With Zagar's inclusion in the Czech team, this Eurosport Best Pairs became just another open meeting without much significance.

 

The poor attendance figures at Torun indicate that there is no need to re-introduce a best pairs competition that no one really missed in the past 20 years.

Agree with your general prognosis, but I think the attendance problem is a result of Polish fans not wanting to pay the increased price for entrance.
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Right, they (the Poles) "borrowed" this scoring system from the British. This was the first time that they used it here on the coninent.

 

Another one of the many "new inventions" that make British speedway so exciting, like the joker, golden double, guest riders, green helmet colours and so on.

 

So new that it's been highly successfully in use for over three decades...

 

You have to bear in mind what I suspect is the true reason why this event, the European Championship and Polish Test Matches have been added to the crowded calendar. They all appear to be being staged by a Polish rival company to BSI called One Sport Marketing. While Poland benefits most from the SGP & SWC series I am sure there are forces within Polish speedway that would like to have control of the most lucrative prize so there is this attempt to 'muscle in' on the main series with these inferior offerings. I'd say the pairs was on simply because it was dormant and 'up for grabs'.

 

As for Britain's involvement in this and the European Championship can you really see the BSPA and SCB encouraging yet more international speedway to further cripple the sport over here?

 

At present we have 12 Saturdays taken over by the GP, 2 for the SWC. Add-in this plus the 4 EC meetings and you have 19 Saturdays which pretty well takes up most of the season. Add in the disruption caused in the days prior to the event for practice sessions and it really doesn't leave much time for top-flight racing in Britain. While it's obviously frustrating for riders to miss out on big pay days you can surely see in this case why the BSPA are refusing to back it?

 

British Speedway has been brought to its knees not only by its own weaknesses but also the economic power of Poland, in Speedway terms at least. Do you really expect it to roll over and die?

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Yes.The funniest comment was from trees,who wasn't the least bit interested in the meeting,but watched it anyway just so she could moan about it afterwards!!!!Surely she or one of her neighbours had something that needed painting?

As it is i do wonder if this has come at the wrong time.Just when Polish fans are losing interest in the sport and fed up of getting milked for GPs,SWC,U21 meetings,Poland v Rest of the World and now this.Just how many big meetings can polish fans afford to attend i ask my self.And how much interest can they have in the ever increasing amount of meetings?Like i said somewhere before it gets like boxing with an ever increasing number of titles to be won and suddenly the importance of any title drops off.I would like to see onesport get involved in a proper test series or even a tournament like we had in GB back in the early 70s.But the calendar is pretty well full now.How can you fit even more in without lots of riders missing meetings?

At least I added to the viewing figures, that's a bonus for them ;-)

Seriously though, our leagues are the backbone n speedway, these commercial companies are not welcome in my book! Having said that IF this Polish company are a rival to BSI and IF they can wrestle the World Championship off them and do the right thing by the world's leagues then I'll back them 100% but I don't know that!

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Well I hope all concerned in Poland (generally) and Torun (in particular) were pleased with that?! A new competition run by a Polish wannabe Promotion company, at Torun, Poland; won by the Polish pair of Torun track specialists, with the added bonus of Chris Holder (the Torun Captain) being the individual top scorer. There didn't seem to be any desire - other than to pick up their wage packet - as there was nothing of worth in the result!

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Some people like nothing more than a good moan.

 

We get a channel that has shown minimal interest in speedway before showing a meeting which is provided above and beyond what speedway fans in the UK have traditionally received through Sky in seasons gone by and people are still unhappy.

 

Sure, we missed the first five heats and the first lap of another, which is far from ideal, but I suspect Eurosport themselves will look in to ways they can avoid this happening in the future. Perhaps the meeting should have been shown 'as live' with the gaps between the initial heats cut out until the recorded transmission caught up to the live feed.

 

People queue up on here to have a pop at Pearson and Tatum yet the commentators provided last night were also not good enough for some. Eurosport have clearly tried to do something about this though with bringing Scott Nicholls on board. However, like any skill, commentating on the race will take him some time to get used to. That said, if I was one of the tried and tested speedway commentators working for one of the companies that produce DVDs for the British league tracks, I would be putting a show-reel together to send to the head of motorsport at British Eurosport and offering my services for free for the remaining UEM meetings to get my foot in the door!

 

At the end of the day, I saw last night's meeting as a welcome addition to the speedway coverage I get to watch at home. The on-track action was ok. Not the best meeting, but not the worst either. These things happen. Not every meeting is a classic. The segments with Gollob/Hampel in Torun and Emil's manager were worth watching and the fact they were translated did not really detract from the overall message. Eurosport is a European broadcaster so it has to be expected.

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There was some good racing but it was hard to see it as anything other than a glorified challenge match.

So what it was a speedway match on TV and was pretty competetive.

I have seen plenty of meaningless challenges that p#ssed all over so called league matches.

 

Of course the 4 3 2 1 system is better as the point of a pairs meet is to see team riding.

It's been around since the 80s in the UK and before that the team with the best gater would win as wins counted better than team rides in case of draws.

Edited by pandorum
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