There are only a few days to the inauguration of Speedway European Championships. The line – up of the championships is very strong, which makes it difficult to point one favorite for the gold medal. The journalist of Radio Zet and privately an enthusiast of speedway, Michał Korościel has attempted about the opinion on this year’s series of SEC.
"I will not be original if I write that this year's European Championships are going to be extremely exciting. The list of participants, although very different than in Grand Prix, is not worse. My favorite to win in this year's SEC series is Nicki Pedersen. Dane has won 3 titles of Individual World Champion, but he has never been the European Champion and he will put this missing trophy on his shelf later this year.
Nicki is a guy who, regardless a rank of an event, always wants to win. When he put his helmet it doesn’t matter if he starts in a friendly meeting or in World Championships, or in SEC series, or in individual or team event – he always must be first and as the European Champion he has never been yet was not used, this season he will be particularly focus on that. After all, Pedersen since the beginning of the season is in great shape and rivals will have considerable trouble with him.
Besides on the podium in the general classification I see Martin Vaculik and Piotr Protasiewicz. Vaculik because this year he is racing great and Protasiewicz because the tracks on which each round will be held Mr. Piotr definitely likes. In Torun he likes racing, in Landshut once he rode for the local club as a rider and on the track in Kumla as a rider of the local Indianerna he has been racing 16th year in a row. Besides, Protasiewicz started the season really great and he will want to make up for the fact that he is not either in Grand Prix, nor in the Polish national team at Speedway World Cup.
I would not be surprised if Peter Kildemand jumped on the podium of the general classification. “Spidey” rides fantastic but he often exceeds fair play rules. This season he rode in 38 heats of Polish extraleague , from 5 he was excluded and SEC series promotes regularity. Too many mishaps: engine failures, tapes, exclusions, may hinder the way to a European top.
In the first eight of the series, apart the four mentioned earlier, in my opinion, there will be also Laguta brothers, Sayfutdinov and Antonio Lindbaeck. As far as Tomasz Gollob is concerned, I believe that his presence in SEC series will be good for the event in terms of marketing, but I'm afraid that it will not raise sports level."
photo source: radiozet.pl
