Poles still without gold - part 1

Tomasz Gollob, Maciej Janowski and Sebastian Ułamek were permanent riders from Poland in the first ever edition of SEC. Interestingly, only one of them stood on the podium of one of the rounds. It was Sebastian Ułamek, who took the second place during the third round in Gorican. Gollob was fighting for the champion title and before the final round in Rzeszów he was losing three points to the leading Nicki Pedersen. Due to his injury, the 2010 World Champion was unable to take part in the final competition, which meant that he finished the first edition of the European Championships in the new formula on the seventh place.

The Poles in SEC 2013:
6. Maciej Janowski - 33 points
7. Tomasz Gollob - 32
11. Sebastian Ułamek – 22

The Poles started SEC 2014 with Janusz Kołodziej's third place in Güstrow. What's more, the Polish representative was also the highest scoring rider of this competition. Tomasz Gollob also performed in the last race of the day. The situation was similar in Togliatti where the second round was held. Patryk Dudek stood on the podium, but due to an anti-doping rule violation he did not finish the SEC 2014 cycle. In the end, only one of the Poles managed to finish in the top five. This was done by Janusz Kołodziej, who took the last "safe" place. Gollob finished in ninth place and Adrian Miedziński was eleventh.

The Poles in SEC 2014:
5. Janusz Kołodziej - 38
9. Tomasz Gollob - 27
11. Adrian Miedziński - 21
13. Patryk Dudek – 16

The 2015 rivalry started in Toruń. Nicki Pedersen won the first round held at Motoarena, and the second place was taken by Paweł Przedpełski, who started in the competition as a "wild card". A few weeks later, the SEC series came to Landshut. Tomasz Gollob did very well on the almost 400-meter track. He didn't lose any races, but not all of them he finished - once he had an engine failure and once he was excluded, which made him finish the tournament in Germany on the fourth place. Another Pole stood on the podium during that year's final round, which took place in Ostrów Wielkopolski. Janusz Kołodziej took the second place and thanks to his high score (12 points), he overtook Grigorij Laguta and stayed in the SEC series for the next season.

The Poles in SEC 2015:
5. Janusz Kołodziej - 33
7. Przemysław Pawlicki - 28
12. Piotr Protasiewicz - 20
13. Tomasz Gollob - 18
15. Tomasz Jędrzejak – 16

2016 is the first year in which the Poles have finished the competition with a medal of the Individual European Championships. Bronze was won by Krzysztof Kasprzak, who scored a total of 38 points - the same as Vaclav Milik and just two less than 2016 SEC winner Nicki Pedersen. 'KK' stood on the podium in Güstrow and Rybnik and had to acknowledge the superiority of the Czech representative in the extra race for the silver medal. Kasprzak was also the only one of the Poles to finish SEC 2016 in the top five. The other Poles - Przemyslaw Pawlicki and Janusz Kolodziej - finishing eighth and tenth respectively.

The Poles in SEC 2016:
3. Krzysztof Kasprzak - 28
8. Przemysław Pawlicki - 33
10. Janusz Kołodziej – 26

SEC 2017 was a showcase of the later champion, Andzejs Lebedevs, but the Poles also played significant roles that year. The opening round of the series was held in Toruń again and the winner was Jarosław Hampel, who took part in this competition as a 'wild card' rider. Once again, Krzysztof Kasprzak stood on the podium of individual rounds. The 2016 SEC bronze medalist took third place in Güstrow and won the competition in Lublin. Mainly these two successful starts made Kasprzak once again finish the cycle in the top five. Przemysław Pawlicki and Mateusz Szczepaniak finished just behind the best five.

The Poles in SEC 2017:
4. Krzysztof Kasprzak - 39
6. Przemysław Pawlicki - 34
7. Mateusz Szczepaniak - 29
11. Kacper Gomólski – 20