Problems with SGP

[PolskiZuzel]

The legendary Polish former National speedway team coach, Marek Cieslak, commented in sportowefakty.pl results of Poland’s sport Personality 2024 plebiscite announced yesterday. When mentioning fifth placed achieved by the 5-times world champion, Bartosz Zmarzlik, and problems with speedway, Marek Cieslak said this:

It is a complex issue. We need the successes of our national teams, which we do not have. We have achieved the best league in the world, which has great viewership. The problem is that the Grand Prix series cannot keep up with this at all, and it is folding down. This is visible, for example, in the locations. There are no new ones, and in addition, large stadiums are slowly disappearing. The FIM and the promoter Discovery are responsible for this. In addition, the best riders in the world do not ride in the series. The recent nominations for wild cards and their translation into geographical terms are a joke. All this means that the Grand Prix arouses interest in fewer and fewer countries. I have the impression that even here (i.e. in Poland) it does not generate the same emotions as it used to. If it were, the successes and the phenomenon of Zmarzlik would have a much greater echo in the country.

Do you think that it is time for Artiom Łaguta and Emil Sajfutdinov to return to the series?

Initially I was against them, but now I think they should be in the series. Zmarzlik would also benefit from the presence of Artiom Łaguta or Emil Sayfutdinov. I have no doubt that he would still win, but then his successes, this rivalry with the Russians would arouse much more emotions. In this way, the audience would be larger. Please remember what rivals Tomasz Gollob had. He had to compete with Tony Rickardsson, Greg Hancock, Billy Hamill, Jason Crump, Mark Loram, Hans Nielsen, Leigh Adams, Ryan Sullivan and many other great stars. Each of them had papers for the title. Now the series lacks such figures.