On 22nd of July, the next final round of this year's Individual European Championships will take place at the City Stadium in Rybnik. Originally it should be the fourth round, but after postponing the competition in Gniezno to 23rd of July, the tournament in Rybnik will be the third after those in Toruń and Bydgoszcz.
After the first two rounds of this year's competition in TAURON Speedway Euro Championship, the leader is Leon Madsen, who won the previous two meetings. In addition, he stood on the podium eight times in a row in his performances in this series (since 2018), so in Rybnik (instead of Gniezno) he will have the chance to extend this wonderful series. Nicki Pedersen, Robert Lambert and Mikkel Michelsen are also at the forefront of this year's fight for the medals of the Individual European Championships. Heats with them will certainly electrify the fans and they should be the loudest for the Brit, who in the 2020 season is the leader of the local ROW team. Sympathy in the audience shouldn’t be expected when Grigorij Laguta will appear on the track, who in 2019 was to defend the colors of the team from Rybnik and eventually left the club and moved to Lublin.
Certainly Polish representatives will face a difficult task. The sixth in the classification is Bartosz Smektała, who knows the track in Rybnik quite well and has already celebrated successes there, such as winning the U-21 Polish Individual Championship in 2017. Kacper Woryna is counting on rehabilitation before his own audience, because the beginning of the season isn’t fortunate for him. We can certainly say the same about Krzysztof Kasprzak, for whom the round in Rybnik is the last call to join the fight for a good result in this year's TAURON SEC series. For the second time this year Bartosz Zmarzlik will appear on the track with a “wild card”. The Individual World Champion of 2019 in the league meeting in Rybnik few weeks ago hasn’t lost to any of his rivals, so he will definitely be one of the tournament's favorites.
The TAURON SEC cycle returns to Rybnik after almost four years of break. Because of the situation related to the coronavirus pandemic, it was decided to host one of the final rounds in this city. The previous one was held there on 17th of September 2016. After heavy rain this event was threatened, but eventually it was possible to race. This evening was unforgettable for Nicki Pedersen, who scored 17 points (losing only to Przemysław Pawlicki). However, the situation in the general classification before this round was so tight, that he was able to jump from the 9th place to the first and achieve the final victory in the whole cycle. The silver medal was won by Czech Václav Milík, after an additional heat with Krzysztof Kasprzak. The competition ended unlucky for Martin Vaculík and Anders Thomsen. Slovak withdrew after two falls and Dane in his first heat suffered a very rare injury – he broke both wrists.
On Wednesday, 22nd of July, riders fighting for the title of the best in Europe will stand again at the start of the competition at the City Stadium in Rybnik. After this tournament the top of the classification should become even clearer, we will also have a clearer situation when it comes to fighting for a place in TOP 5, which will allow to participate in next year’s series. Nicki Pedersen certainly wouldn't mind repeating the result from 2016, but the main opponent in achieving this goal could be his follow-countryman, the leader of the general classification – Leon Madsen.
