That’s how it was last year… Togliatti

 It has been known that a journey to Russia means a lot of hours of planning and also a lot of time travelling. Preparing this as far as logistics is concerned takes a lot of time and that’s why a week before the event the bikes of the riders starting in Speedway European Championships came in the long road to Togliatti, which is almost on thousand kilometers from Moscow.

The meeting since the very beginning went well for Martin Vaculik who was defending the title. Only in the last heat of the regular phase Slovak was beaten by Maksims Bogdanovs. Unfortunately for Martin the most unlucky heat for him was the final one, to which he qualified from the first place. In the first run the best start had Emil Sajfutdinow and it seemed that he won for the second time in his mother country. Then Vaculik and Pedersen started their fight for the podium. After one of the attacks Dane fell on the track and the referee had to exclude one of the riders.

The referee chose Vaculik which made the rider angry. He tried to talk with the referee by a phone but he didn’t choose his decision and in the re – run we didn’t see the best rider of the regular phase. Nicki Pedersen showed great reflex for the second time and he was the one who reach the finish line as the first rider. Finally Emil Sajfutdinow won the second place after the fight with Patryk Dudek.

After the two tournaments “Power” had one point of advantage over Emil Sajfutdinow. It seemed that the gold medal is at Dane’s fingertips. His great riding was a prove for this, two victories in the first two rounds of SEC and the place of the third final – Holsted. It was the place where triple World Champion starts every day. Danish fans kept their fingers crossed and they believed that Pedersen sealed the title on his track.

However other riders had completely different plans…