When all the riders were moving to Holsted for the third round of Speedway Euro Championship 2014, most experts were thinking whether Nicki Pedersen would secure the European Champion title at his home track. Everything around was leading to it, but...
Third final of SEC in Holsted was endangered, because the weather was really capricious. Just few hours before the start of the meeting, an intensive rain came down and that made the track's preparation really hard to do. Even the practice session was cancelled. Organizers made a really good job, though and ultimately created safe conditions for good racing. Considering the rain's scale it was done only with a 1,5 hour-delay.
Obviously, Nicki Pedersen was the favourite from the very beginning, but after the track's condition had changed, Dane got lost completely. In his first three starts, "Power" had only one point and only a miracle could put Pedersen through to the race-off heat.
Meanwhile, his biggest rival, Emil Sayfutdinov was doing incredibly well. Only one loss in three heats caused that Russian got away in the general classification and assured a safe distance. However Pedersen was still fighting for every single point, he couldn't make the race-off heat.
Sayfutdinov won the round at Pedersen's track and got the revenge for the loss in Togliatti. Many experts thought that Nicki squandered his chance for the golden medal. However, there was still the round in Częstochowa waiting for the riders...
