Jump to content
British Speedway Forum

The 2016 Speedway Best Pairs Cup


Recommended Posts

Does the Spengler Cup qualify?Does seem a number of leagues take a bit of a break for that

In fairness though, this seems to be organised by an actual ice hockey club that plays in an established competition.

The pecking order is FIM, FIM Europe, national federations. OneSport is given dates after FIM has reserved theirs. I think they are trying to get along, as the SEC challenge for example is on a thursday this year.

The wider issue is running parallel series. As speedway is primarily European based, it makes no sense to run World and European Championships which are essentially competing for the same riders and market.

 

If there's an issue with how BSI run the SGP then deal with that, if certain countries/tracks feel left out then address that issue too, but it's absurd for the FIM and its mickey mouse offshoot FIM Europe to be sanctioning competing competitions in the same space. The pairs is slightly different in that there's not an existing FIM version of that, but that could have been a proper World Championship instead of the cobbled together nonsense it is now.

 

Protecting your own is fine, but the BSPA's problem is not OneSport but the lack of a local pool of riders. Even 20 years ago it was 50/50 with uk or foreign riders in the top league. Why not wake up then and start making riders of your own?

Even if Britain did have a sufficient pool of riders, taking part in European competitions would still require riders to be disappearing off almost every weekend. Aside from the duality of functions mentioned above, I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that these European competitions shouldn't be run to provide fixtures for continental tracks and riders, but neither should British speedway be criticised for not participating because it wants to run its own programme of meetings at the weekends (which it has done for the past 80 years).

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure it really matters.Also you just have to look at the state boxing is in.Back in the 70s there were just 2 or 3 world federations,now anyone with a bit of money seems to be able to set up a federation and hold world title fights.Is there really anything to stop someone doing the same with another world or European speedway title ?But in any case it is all ok'ed by the FIM and so money should be going back into the speedway pot

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2. There are several. Tour de Ski in cross country skiing is a sort of "mini-cup" in addition to the original world cup, albeit organized by FIS just like the regular world cup.

Yes, but this forms part of the world circuit of events and I daresay elite cross country skiers tend to compete exclusively at that level.

 

Conversely, football has alternating World Cups and European Championships that (usually) take place outside of the normal playing seasons of the main leagues. European club competitions have defined midweek dates and don't take away prime weekends from national leagues (although they're arguably more prestigious nowadays), whilst even the World Club Cup has a defined week in which it takes place.

 

And the revenues from these competitions for better or worse, accrue to FIFA and UEFA even though where it goes after that is anyone's guess.

 

NHL owners doesn't want "their" players to play in the Olympic so they revived their own world cup tournament simply because they considered getting too little pay from IOC's Olympic games tournament. The last thing haven't been said though regarding NHL player in the Olympic.

North American sports have never really played well with the rest of the world, not least because the major leagues there are so financially dominant.

 

We had two parallel touring car racing series in Sweden during 2012. STCC was the old established series but a few teams left STCC and started a new championship called TTA. For the 2013 season they had joined forces again though.

For many years USA had competing formula cars racing series. I don't remember which series was which anymore

but they were named IRL, IndyCar, ChampCar, CART and similar.

Motor sports is a bit notorious for having rival series, but it usually comes down to disagreements over formulas and running costs. It'll usually be argued that series X differs from series Y in some subtle manner, although rarely is it ultimately good for the sport.

 

As far as I know though, the riders in the SGP ride the same bikes as in SEC, so that can't be an argument.

Edited by Humphrey Appleby
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In fairness though, this seems to be organised by an actual ice hockey club that plays in an established competition.The wider issue is running parallel series. As speedway is primarily European based, it makes no sense to run World and European Championships which are essentially competing for the same riders and market.If there's an issue with how BSI run the SGP then deal with that, if certain countries/tracks feel left out then address that issue too, but it's absurd for the FIM and its mickey mouse offshoot FIM Europe to be sanctioning competing competitions in the same space. The pairs is slightly different in that there's not an existing FIM version of that, but that could have been a proper World Championship instead of the cobbled together nonsense it is now.Even if Britain did have a sufficient pool of riders, taking part in European competitions would still require riders to be disappearing off almost every weekend. Aside from the duality of functions mentioned above, I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that these European competitions shouldn't be run to provide fixtures for continental tracks and riders, but neither should British speedway be criticised for not participating because it wants to run its own programme of meetings at the weekends (which it has done for the past 80 years).

I feel the same way about parallel series and also about your last sentence.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In fairness though, this seems to be organised by an actual ice hockey club that plays in an established competition.

 

The wider issue is running parallel series. As speedway is primarily European based, it makes no sense to run World and European Championships which are essentially competing for the same riders and market.

 

If there's an issue with how BSI run the SGP then deal with that, if certain countries/tracks feel left out then address that issue too, but it's absurd for the FIM and its mickey mouse offshoot FIM Europe to be sanctioning competing competitions in the same space. The pairs is slightly different in that there's not an existing FIM version of that, but that could have been a proper World Championship instead of the cobbled together nonsense it is now.

 

 

Riders want to do it, promoters want to stage it, fans want to watch it and sponsors want to be invest in it. What's the issue?

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Riders want to do it, promoters want to stage it, fans want to watch it and sponsors want to be invest in it. What's the issue?

 

The "but neither should British speedway be criticised for not participating because it wants to run its own programme of meetings at the

weekends (which it has done for the past 80 years)." says it all. Some want things to be like the "always" have been.

 

If Speedway is going survive it's time to stop with the "territorial thinking" like the one above.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "but neither should British speedway be criticised for not participating because it wants to run its own programme of meetings at the weekends (which it has done for the past 80 years)." says it all. Some want things to be like the "always" have been.

It's not question of being opposed to change, but asking whether competitions between made-up commercial teams are actually going to advance the sport in the long-term. We were also told the SGP would usher in a new era that would take speedway to new markets, but the sport has not moved forward in the past 15 years, and very arguably has regressed. Now it might possibly have regressed even more without the SGP, but equally had similar effort and investment been put into league racing then the story might be different as well.

 

This European Pairs competition offers three meetings for about 21 riders. Without league racing providing regular fixtures for the other 30 weeks of the season, what else are they going to be doing for the rest of the year, not to mention the other 400 or so professional riders?

 

Now I fully accept that staging some competitions for elite riders generates interest and a certain showcase for the sport, but the right balance has to be struck between these events and needs and requirements of the bread-and-butter of the sport. What certainly should not be happening is elite competitions competing with each other for riders and revenue, and what certainly should be happening is some of the profits from elite competitions accruing directly back to the underlying sport that sustains them.

 

If people prefer one-off meetings organised by private promoters between made-up commercial teams then fine, but let's see how the sport progresses in the next few years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

On German Eurosport this year there will be absolutely no speedway coverage anymore.

 

No more SEC and no more Best Pairs Cup, even though some German Sponsors have invested in teams to enter the SBPC, expecting to get live tv presentation, with a SBPC round held at Landshut, and a SEC round at Güstrow, plus the SEC Challenge at Olching.

 

German Eurosport have stated that tv audience figures for live speedway were disappointing last year, compared to MotoGP and Superbikes coverage.

 

Since there is still no tv coverage of the SGP and SWC here in Germany, this decision is a major set back, with once again no speedway to be seen on tv in our country.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On German Eurosport this year there will be absolutely no speedway coverage anymore.

 

No more SEC and no more Best Pairs Cup, even though some German Sponsors have invested in teams to enter the SBPC, expecting to get live tv presentation, with a SBPC round held at Landshut, and a SEC round at Güstrow, plus the SEC Challenge at Olching.

 

German Eurosport have stated that tv audience figures for live speedway were disappointing last year, compared to MotoGP and Superbikes coverage.

 

Since there is still no tv coverage of the SGP and SWC here in Germany, this decision is a major set back, with once again no speedway to be seen on tv in our country.

I blame BSI.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is the latest line-up for Saturday`s 1st round of the Speedway pairs cup from Torun- live on British Eurosport 2 at 4pm

 

Boll Team:
1. Niels Kristian Iversen
2. Martin Vaculik
15. Patryk Dudek

Nice Racing:
3. Artiom Łaguta
4. Antonio Lindbaeck
16. Grigorij Łaguta

City Team:
5. Kai Huckenbeck
6. Tobias Kroner
17. Tobias Busch

Fogo Power:
7. Emil Sajfutdinow
8. Bartosz Zmarzlik
18. Tobiasz Musielak

Trans MF Pro Race Team:
9. Martin Smolinski
10. Nicki Pedersen
19. Renat Gafurow

Eport2000.pl Team:
11. Piotr Protasiewicz
12. Grzegorz Zengota
20. Janusz Kołodziej

Monster Energy Team:
13. Greg Hancock
14. Chris Holder
21. Paweł Przedpełski

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All that fuss about no Team GB and the year it's not countries its mix and match no Brits in it anyway :D

 

And none of them teams make any sense - apart from Monster as we do know team Monster. I just don't see the point.

Edited by SCB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All that fuss about no Team GB and the year it's not countries its mix and match no Brits in it anyway :D

 

And none of them teams make any sense - apart from Monster as we do know team Monster. I just don't see the point.

Most of the teams are big Polish sponsors of their riders-exactly the same as Monster ! ie Boll, Nice and Fogo

Edited by racers and royals
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd bet for the next round of this tournaent, the composition of the pairs/teams will look different again.

Seems this has been transforemd into an event to put the sponsors in the spotlight and on tv. Just which rider is in which team seems totally irrelevant. An absolute nonsense competition in my eyes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Privacy Policy