The best speedway riders in Europe are preparing for the grand final in Lublin, which will take place on September 16th. Now we want to tell you how important for final GC was last year's tournament in Rybnik.
After third final in Togliatti, we knew nothing. Fight for the gold was very interesting, and battle for the maintaince in the cycle was epic, too. Entangled in the war for victory were Nicki Pedersen, Vaclav Milik, Grigorij Laguta, Krzysztof Kasprzak, Emil Sajfutdinow, Leon Madsen and Antonio Lindbaeck.
From the very first race, Nicki Pedersen was riding his best - he needs SEC gold to fill up the case of tournaments. That day he lost only one time; Przemysław Pawlicki took the victory from him.
Grigorij Laguta seemed to do a bit worse. The most important for him was exclusion from 9th heat, which resulted in huge difficulties for him. Situation changed as fast as riders were, and in next races, doubts were more and more prominent.
Track in Rybnik was very well prepared. We saw some races, wherein riders changed their positions in the field. It was prominent in 20th heat, after which fans could not believe in what they saw. Furthermore, after basic part of competition ended, situation in the GC was... tough. 5 riders - Grigorij Łaguta, Antonio Lindbaeck, Krzysztof Kasprzak, Leon Madsen and Nicki Pedersen – had the same number of points on scoreboard, what foretold epic fight in last 2 races.
Pedersen and Kasprzak had been promoted to the final, and Emil Sajfutdinow, Vaclav Milik, Leon Madsen and Grigorij Łaguta took part in the race-off. After an interesting race, but without any changes, two first riders won places in final.
Before the last race of the cycle, Pedersen and Kasprzak had 37 points - one point more than Milik and Sayfutdinov.
In the final, Pedersen was on the lead from the start to the finish line. Suddenly Kasprzak lost two positions in favour of Milik and Sayfutdinov. Fortunately for Pole, Russian had a failure, what excluded him from battle for medals.
Vaclav Milik and Krzysztof Kasprzak, after last race, had the same number of points. Therefore they had to took part in extra race, which was crucial in the battle for silver medal. Finally, Czech turned out to be better. Grigorij Łaguta, Leon Madsen and Antonio Lindbaeck fought to keep in cycle, too. Łaguta and Madsen turned out to be the lucky ones.
That was the best speedway show in SEC 2016. A lot of dramaturgy, situation changes and fight in the field. We hope that this year grand final is going to be similar!
Tickets for SEC grand final, which will take place on September 16th in Lublin are on sale now. You can buy it on bit.ly/SEC_final_Lublin_tickets and in Empik, Media Markt and STS.
Tickets prices:
Normal: 55 zł
Recuced: 40 zł
Normal with a discount: 40 zł
There is a code on every Motor Lublin passcard - it allows you to buy normal ticket in reduced price.
IV Speedway Euro Campionship round startlist;
1. Krzysztof Kasprzak #507 (Poland)
2. Mateusz Szczepaniak #58 (Poland)
3. Martin Smolinski #84 (Germany)
4. Kenneth Bjerre #91 (Denmark)
5. Andzejs Lebedevs #129 (Latvia)
6. Andrey Kudryashov #9 (Russia)
7. Vaclav Milik #13 (Czechia)
8. Artem Laguta #2 (Russia)
9. Przemysław Pawlicki #59 (Poland)
10. Adrian Miedziński #20 (Poland)
11. Daniel Jeleniewski #16 (Poland)
12. Michael Jepsen Jensen #52 (Denmark)
13. Leon Madsen #66 (Denmark)
14. Andreas Jonsson #100 (Sweden)
15. Mikkel Bech #177 (Denmark)
16. Kacper Gomólski #44 (Poland)
17. Oskar Bober (Poland)
18. Wiktor Lampart (Poland)
