Yesterday saw the first tie of the Speedway World Cup, for those of you who don't know how the tournament works I'll tell you: Firstly there are two qualifying ties, this year they consist of Poland, Denmark, Russia and Czech Republic, the other tie consists of Australia, Great Britain, Sweden and Finland. The winner of each tie (which is decided over 25 heats/races, with 3 points for 1st, 2 for 2nd and 1 for 3rd. Each team is allowed to use one 'Joker' which doubles the score accumulated in that heat) is automatically through to the World Cup Final on Saturday. The teams finishing in 4th are automatically out of the World Cup, however the teams that finish 2nd and 3rd go through to a playoff on Thursday where there the top two will progress to the final.
The first tie was held in Poland and the home nation were anticipated favourites with the likes of Gollob, Holta and Hampel all competing in the World Championships, the other two riders in the team were Miedzinski and Kolodziej who have World Championship experience themselves. Russia were without injured Emil Sayfutdinov which was a big blow as he is the captain, this left Russia with a pretty unknown team with Artem and Grigoriy Laguta, Gafurov, Gizatullin and Povazhny.
The Danish team looked second strongest with Bjerre, Andersen and Pedersen all competing in the World Championships. They also had the experienced Iversen who has also competed in the World Championships before as has Klindt their final rider. Czech Republic's team consisted of Matej Kus who currently sits second from bottom in the World Championships and has the experienced Dryml brother; Lukas and Ales. The other two riders are Simota and Malek who are virtually unknown to us.
The result turned out with no surprises and the outcome was a certainty round about half way through the meeting. Czech Republic finished the night with just eight points, that is just three points ahead of the all-time lowest World Cup score which was accumulated by Germany. Russia finished third with 31 points and Denmark grabbed the other playoff spot with 45 points, Poland, as anticipated, won the tie with 68 points which is a new all-time highest World Cup score. With Poland already dubbed as favourites to win the whole thing even before this tie it's hard to see why not, the only historic factor is that Poland have never won the World Cup outside of Poland and the final is being held in Denmark.
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