Leon Madsen took 5th position, last one promoting to SEC 2017. However, he had to fight for it really hard and managed to reach for it in the additional heat. How did the Dane's path to fifth position of European Championship look like?
Started with some bad luck in German Güstrow. Madsen got seven points, but had a great chance to get to the race-off heat. After the meeting, Madsen was looking at the TV, where results were displayed, for a long time and was analyzing his situation. "Damn tape" - angry Madsen said.
In Daugavpils, Dane started really well - from five points in two starts. Later on, a crisis came and Madsen got only three points in three heats. After two rounds, he had 15 points overall and was losing only three points to the leaders: Emil Sayfutdinov and Przemysław Pawlicki.
In fact, Madsen got himself into the game for medals during the round in Togliatti. It was in Russia, where Dane showed his real skills. Except a small failure in his second start, when he brought "zero", Madsen was ruly uncatchable. After all, it was his last heat, when he lost with further winner - Grigorij Laguta and Vaclav Milik.
Some real nerves came in Rybnik. Throughout the whole meeting, Madsen was watching events at the track and the overall classification nervously. After every heat, all riders were coming to TV area, where thanks to a dedicated application, they could observe and analyze their situation. Madsen advanced to the race-off heat with 11 points gathered, however at the end of the day, didn't go through to the final. Then, the real nerves appeared. Five riders had 37 points ad each of them could be both a gold medalist or got himself out of the series. Ultimately, there were three riders fighting for two spots in SEC 2017: Antonio Lindbaeck, Grigorij Laguta and Leon Madsen. It was Laguta and Madsen, who ended as top 2 and secured their spots for the next year's series. For sure, next year, Madsen will fight for one of the medals of SEC 2017.
