South Australian Champion Captains Australia In World Cup - July 2013

July 20, 2013 by Gillman Media

Five-times South Australian Champion, and current Australian Champion Troy Batchelor has the honour of captaining Australia in the Monster Energy FIM Speedway World Cup Final in the Czech Republic tonight (20 July).

The Kangaroos will face the Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark in the final after a dramatic victory in the last chance Race Off in Prague on Thursday night.

Australia’s quest for World Cup glory started last Sunday in the first qualifying round in Poland. Not surprisingly, on home soil, the strong Polish team won the meeting relatively easily to qualify for the final alongside the host nation, the Czech Republic.

Unfortunately Australia never gets the chance of an automatic start in the final as the host nation, nor any home track advantage, but nevertheless, despite being without injured World Champion Chris Holder, they finished second to Poland to qualify for the last chance Race Off meeting, along with third-placegetters Latvia, with a weakened Russia, without a number of its top riders, eliminated.

The results from the first meeting were: Poland 48: Jaroslaw Hampel 14, Krzysztof Kasprzak 13, Maciej Janowski 13, Patryk Dudek 8; AUSTRALIA 34: Darcy Ward 14 (3-3-3-0-2-3), Troy Batchelor 12 (2-3-1-2-2-2), Jason Doyle 7 (2-1-1-3), Davey Watt 1 (0-0-1-0); Latvia 27: Maksims Bogdanovs 11, Kasts Puodzuks 9, Andzejs Lebedevs 7, Vjaceslavs Giruckis 0; Russia 14: Andrey Kudryashov 7, Vladimir Borodulin 4, Ilya Chalov 2, Viktor Kulakov 1.

The second qualifying round was held at King’s Lynn in England and was won by Denmark from Great Britain and the USA, with Sweden eliminated.

Results: Denmark 49 (Niels-Kristian Iversen 13, Nicki Pedersen 13, Michael Jepsen Jensen 12, Kenneth Bjerre 11); Great Britain 35 (Tai Woffinden 18, Chris Harris 12, Craig Cook 4, Edward Kennett 1); United States Of America 24 (Greg Hancock 16, Ricky Wells 4, Ryan Fisher 3, Gino Manzares 1); Sweden 18 (Peter Ljung 11, Daniel Nermark 5, Dennis Andersson 2, Jonas Davidsson 0)

The Race Off meeting in Prague on Thursday night brought together Australia, Latvia, Great Britain and the USA with only the winner qualifying for tonight’s final.

The meeting was expected to be a shoot-out between Australia and Great Britain but turned out to be one of the most dramatic World Cup meetings for many years with all four teams a realistic chance of winning for most of the meeting. Going into the last round of four heats Australia and the USA where level with 27 points, with Latvia and Great Britain both on 23, but Australia prevailed to win by five points over the Hancock-inspired USA.

Results: AUSTRALIA 36: Darcy Ward 13 (3-1-3-3-3), Jason Doyle 8 (1-3-1-0-3), Cameron Woodward 8 (2-2-2-1-1), Troy Batchelor 7 (1-X-1-3-2); USA 31: Greg Hancock 20, Ryan Fisher 8, Ricky Wells 3, Gino Manzares 0; Latvia 29: Kjastas Puodzuks 10, Maksim Bogdanovs 9, Wiaczeslaw Gieruckis 5, Andrzej Lebedev 5; Great Britain 28: Tai Woffinden 14, Chris Harris 7, Lewis Bridger 4, Ben Barker 3.

Poland and Denmark are being hotly tipped to fight it out for the gold medal in the final tonight (about 2.30am Sunday morning Adelaide time), but Australia is determined to get a medal.

Poland’s gating was a cut above that of their rivals in the first round and Polish rider Jacek Hampel knows his team must maintain their fast starting to regain the Ove Fundin Trophy at the Marketa Stadium. He said: “The most important thing in Prague is going to be to make a good jump from the start.”

Australian skipper Troy Batchelor hopes his side’s epic win in the Race Off will give them the edge in Saturday’s Final.

He said: “Setup in speedway is 90 percent of the race. I think we learnt a lot about the track and I hope we can use it to our advantage.”

Despite winning the Race Off, the Aussies were back in Prague yesterday afternoon to practice for the Final. “We’ve been doing some testing,” Australian team manager Mark Lemon said. “The boys weren’t 100 percent satisfied on Thursday night and struggled a little bit with setups. They probably weren’t as aggressive as they should have been. But we’ve got an insight into how things should pan out with the bikes, which is very important.”

The Australians have retained Thursday night’s line-up for the final, with Cameron Woodward keeping his place ahead of Dave Watt who couldn’t get his bikes running properly in the opening meeting.

Photo: The Australian team on the podium after winning Thursday night’s Race Off. From left to right: Troy Batchelor, Darcy Ward, Jason Doyle, Cameron Woodward and Mark Lemon. Photo courtesy of Petr Makušev (Czech Republic),