Tauron SEC will return to Gniezno after two years break

The host of this year's 3rd final round will be Gniezno, where at the stadium named after colonel Franciszek Hynek, league meetings are hosted by the local Start team. This venue has occasionally hosted both European and World competitions in recent years. In October 2011, Maciej Janowski celebrated the title of U-21 Individual World Champion at this place. The semi-final of the Speedway World Cup in the 2015 season was also took place there, when the Poles lost to Swedes after a very serious injury of Jarosław Hampel. Three years later FIM Europe competitions were organized there twice in June. Last Saturday of this month, the young Polish national team, led by Rafał Dobrucki, confidently won in Gniezno promotion to the Final of the U-21 Team European Championships. A week earlier (23rd of June), the Tauron Speedway Euro Championship series appeared there for the first time in a tournament that inaugurated the final competition of the 2018 season.

The series will return to Gniezno after a little over two years break. We can see in that case a good cooperation between the organizers and the local club, because they managed to reach agreement quite quickly, in these extremely difficult times, caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This year's third final round is scheduled for Wednesday, 15th of July, and the competition should start at 7:00 pm. Jarosław Hampel has won in Gniezno two years ago, losing only one point in the whole meeting. This time, he won’t participate in the series, but on the list of regular participants there are eight riders who began the fight for the title of the best in Europe then. Certainly Kai Huckenbeck could be named the “underdog” of that tournament. The German with 10 points in his account checked in the race-off heat, in which he won, so he could appear in the final heat also. Then he defeated the current Individual European Champion, Mikkel Michelsen and finished third on the final podium.

In addition to the aforementioned earlier German and Danish riders, six other (each from a different country) who are on the list of regular participants of this year's series rode in the tournament in Gniezno. The meeting two years ago was not very successful for Leon Madsen, a fellow-countryman of Michelsen. He gained 8 points and won in just one heat. As it turned out, this weaker result motivated him, because in the next three final rounds of the Tauron Speedway Euro Championship he was already sensational and a few months later in Chorzów he celebrated his final victory. Václav Milík and Krzysztof Kasprzak gained the same number of points as Madsen. Both of them will certainly want to fight for a much better result this year and they have already reached places on the final podium of the competition for the Individual European Championship in 2016 and 2017 (Milík with a silver and bronze medal, and Kasprzak with a bronze medal). Robert Lambert, Andzejs Lebedevs and Andrey Kudryashov also competed at the venue in Gniezno two years ago and they are permanent riders of this year’s Tauron SEC series. All three certainly would like to present themselves much better this time, because they took 11th, 14th and 15th places respectively with six and five points. For Lambert, as well as for the aforementioned Madsen, such unlucky beginning of the series was certainly a good impulse, finally the British rider in September 2018 won the bronze medal in the entire Tauron SEC.

There are still seven riders who didn’t perform in first final round of 2018 Tauron SEC: Grigorij Laguta, Kacper Woryna, Bartosz Smektała, Nicki Pedersen, Michael Jepsen Jensen, David Bellego and Peter Ljung. However, most of them have already visited the venue in Gniezno in earlier years and if these riders want to fight for high places in this year's series, they must be prepared to start in all conditions. Before the beginning of the cycle it is difficult to say whether those who competed at stadium named after colonel Franciszek Hynek in the 2018 season will be better in this year’s third final round or riders who did not have that chance at the time. Certainly it can’t be ruled out that someone will surprise everyone, just like 23rd of June 2018 Kai Huckenbeck did, taking the place on the podium. Surprises are included in every sport and add colors to the competition. Fans hope that in mid-July 2020 they will witness interesting meeting and the venue in Gniezno will return to the Tauron Speedway Euro Championship series in a big way.