Denmark, Poland, Sweden and Australia all battled it out last night in Gorzow, Poland to be crowned SWC 2011 Champions. Denmark and Poland were unchanged from their semi-final victories, Davey Watt kept his place in the Australian team and Sweden were also unchanged from their semi-final and race-off meetings.
Heat one was taken by Crump for Australia with Kasprzak, who was unbeaten in the semis, finishing second for Poland. Heat two saw Darcy Ward hit the ground in the tight first corner, all four riders were able to restart. From the restart, Hampel ended up colliding with the air fence because of the lack of room given by Ward and the Aussie was excluded, the second restart was eventually won by Sweden's Lindgren. Heat three also had to be restarted twice, Troy Batchelor was initially guilty of a false start but all four riders restarted the race. The first restart was then also deemed as an unsatisfactory start but it looked perfectly fine, the second restart was then won by Batchelor. Davey Watt was guilty of a false start in heat four and also had to be restarted, all four continued and Denmark's Nicky Pedersen took the chequered flag. Heat five was also re-run as Kolodziej had no room in the first corner and hit the deck, all four again restarted and Chris Holder won Australia's third heat. After five arduous heats, Australia led on ten points, Denmark were second on eight and Sweden and Poland both had six.
The rest of the meeting went like clockwork with no further restarts. Lindback took heat heat six before Australia kept control with both Holder and Crump winning their second heats of the night. It took nine heats before the favourites and defending champions Poland to get going, but their captain Gollob took heat nine before then winning heat ten with the joker to earn six more points. After ten heats, Australia had eighteen points, Poland seventeen, Denmark sixteen and Sweden twelve.
Poland then really began to dominate as Hampel, Gollob and Protasiewicz took the next three heats, Jonsson played Sweden's joker in heat thirteen and came fourth as Protasiewicz won. Freddie Lindgren won his second heat of the night to temporarily stop the dominance and Kenneth Bjerre won heat fifteen for Denmark. After fifteen heats, Australia and Poland had twenty-six points, Denmark twenty-two and Sweden nineteen.
Holder and Crump made it three heats each for Australia, Bjerre played Denmark's joker in heat seventeen and came fourth receiving nil points. But Poland again reasserted themselves with Kolodziej, Kasprzak and Hampel taking the next three heats. After twenty heats, Poland were now leading on thirty-eight, Australia had thirty-five, Sweden and Denmark both had twenty-five.
The gap looked to have increased to six points, enough for a joker, when Protasiewicz won heat twenty-one but Ward managed to take Nicky Pedersen on the line to secure third and the gap was at five points. It was then cut to four points in heat twenty-two, Batchelor won it ahead of Kolodziej. Poland were then able to extend their lead to six points despite Niels-Kristian Iversen winning the heat, Kasprzak came second with Watt fourth. This meant that Chris Holder could play Australia's joker in the penultimate heat, he was second behind Hampel before Pedersen went down on lap three. But the Dane managed to pick himself up which meant there was no restart, allowing Hampel to take the win ahead of Holder to ensure that Poland would win the championship. The final heat saw a tremendous battle between Gollob and Crump which Gollob just managed to win. The result saw Poland become the first nation to ever win the World Cup three times in a row with a final score of fifty-one, Australia finished six behind on forty-five, Sweden managed to sneak third on thirty with Denmark on twenty-nine.
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