GREAT BRITAIN Speedway Team captain Tai Woffinden has a simple message ahead of the 2019 Speedway of Nations tournament – “we’re going for gold!”
The Speedway World Champion was named in the trio for the opening round in Manchester on May 11 alongside Craig Cook and Under-21 reserve Robert Lambert - with Chris Harris and Dan Bewley the other two squad members – and knows that it’s going to be a fiercely contested battle.
GB face off against Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Latvia and USA at the National Speedway Stadium, with the top three nations progressing to the Final in Russia in July.
Woffinden expects a testing qualification round, but feels his side have what it takes to make a strong start to this year’s competition.
He said: “We’ve got a pretty tough round, obviously Denmark and the Aussies look pretty strong but there’s some other good teams out there and we know it’s gunna be hard.
“Last year we put in a pretty good performance at Belle Vue and we’re looking to do the same again, we want to win our round and lay down a bit of a marker to the other countries and head to Russia with a big result.
“We’ve got a strong team again, Cookie knows Manchester inside out and Rob Lambert is improving all the time and I’d say he’s even better now than he was last year so we have no reason to fear anyone.”
Great Britain fell agonisingly short of the gold medal last year when Russia pipped them to victory in the all-or-nothing final race, but the triple world champion has his eyes on the ultimate prize this year.
“We want to go one further than last year, nobody expected us to do what we did last time but this year maybe a few people will look at us and know that we’ve got what it takes to win so our only goal is the gold medal. We only want to win. But first we’ve got to get to Russia!”
Woffy also said he’s looking forward to his first appearance on British shores of 2019, saying “It’s always cool racing for your country in front of your home fans and last year the atmosphere was awesome, I don’t get to race here too often so it’s always special when I do.
“We want to see as many fans there as possible cheering us on and we’ll do the best we can to send them home happy.”
You can also keep in touch with the GB Speedway Team via their website and social media - Website: www.gbspeedwayteam.com - Twitter: @GBspeedwayTeam.
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UPCOMING FIXTURES...
19/05/19 1830 Newcastle v Leicester (Champ)
19/05/19 1600 Sheffield v Berwick (Champ)
19/05/19 1500 Mildenhall v Kent (NT) 20/05/19 1930 Belle Vue v Swindon (Prem)
20/05/19 1930 Ipswich v Wolverhampton (Prem)
20/05/19 1930 King's Lynn v Poole (PSC) 20/05/19 1930 Cradley v Isle of Wight (NLKOC) 20/05/19 1830 Kent v Wimbledon Select (Ch)
22/05/19 1930 Birmingham v Edinburgh (Champ)
22/05/19 1930 Somerset v Eastbourne (Champ)
23/05/19 1930 Peterborough v Poole (Prem)
23/05/19 1930 Belle Vue v Plymouth (NL)
23/05/19 1900 Isle of Wight v Stoke (NL)
24/05/19 1930 Edinburgh v Glasgow (CS)
24/05/19 1915 Plymouth v Isle of Wight (NT)
24/05/19 1930 Julie Lewis Memorial, Redcar
25/05/19 1930 Eastbourne v Berwick (Champ) 25/05/19 1900 Glasgow v Scunthorpe (Champ)
25/05/19 1930 Leicester v Birmingham (Champ)
25/05/19 1900 Stoke v Buxton Select v Crewe Select (3TT)
26/05/19 1500 Mildenhall v Leicester (NLKOC)
27/05/19 1200 Belle Vue v Wolverhampton (Prem)
27/05/19 1700 Peterborough v King's Lynn (Prem)
27/05/19 1130 Poole v Swindon (Prem)
27/05/19 1930 Swindon v Poole (Prem)
27/05/19 2000 Wolverhampton v Belle Vue (Prem)
27/05/19 1600 Kent v Mildenhall (NT) 28/05/19 1930 Glasgow v Sheffield (C-KOC)
29/05/19 1930 Somerset v Scunthorpe (Champ)
29/05/19 1930 Birmingham v Eastbourne (C-KOC)
30/05/19 1930 Poole v Peterborough (Champ)
30/05/19 1900 Isle of Wight v Kent (NT)
01/06/19 1930 Eastbourne v Sheffield (Champ)
01/06/19 1900 Berwick v Newcastle (C-KOC)
02/06/19 1600 Sheffield v Scunthorpe (Champ)
02/06/19 1830 Newcastle v Berwick (C-KOC)
02/06/19 1600 Leicester v Stoke (NL)
03/06/19 1930 Belle Vue v Ipswich (Prem)
03/06/19 1930 King's Lynn v Wolverhampton (Prem)
03/06/19 1930 Cradley v Belle Vue (NL) 03/06/19 1830 Kent v Isle of Wight (NT)
LATEST RESULTS...
SATURDAY MAY 18:
FIM GRAND PRIX OF POLAND, Warsaw 1 Leon Madsen (Den) 2 Fredrik Lindgren (Swe) 3 Patryk Dudek (Pol) 4 Niels-Kristian Iversen (Den)
STANDINGS after Round 1 of 10 1 Patryk Dudek (Pol) 16 2 Fredrik Lindgren (Swe) 15 3 Niels-Kristian Iversen (Den) 14 4 Leon Madsen (Den) 13
CHAMPIONSHIP Berwick 46 – Aaron Summers 13+1 Sheffield 44 – Danny King 12 Championship points: Berwick 3 Sheffield 1
Eastbourne 44 - Tom Brennan 11+2
Glasgow 45 - Craig Cook 11
Championship points: Eastbourne 0 Glasgow 3
NATIONAL LEAGUE Leicester 51 – Ellis Perks 12 Belle Vue 38 – Jordan Palin 12+1 National League points: Leicester 3 Belle Vue 0
FRIDAY MAY 17:
CHAMPIONSHIP
Edinburgh 45 (Josh Pickering 9+1)
Leicester 44 (Scott Nicholls 15+1)
Championship points: Edinburgh 3 Leicester 1
Glasgow 56 (Craig Cook 15)
Eastbourne 33 Richard Lawson 10)
Championship points: Glasgow 3 Eastbourne 0
Scunthorpe 40 (Josh Auty 15)
Somerset 50 (Rory Schlein 12)
Championship points: Scunthorpe 0 Somerset 4
NATIONAL TROPHY
Plymouth 41 (Ben Wilson 12+1)
Mildenhall 49 (Max Clegg 17)
National Trophy points: Plymouth 0 Mildenhall 4
BRITISH YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIP, at Peterborough
500cc
1st Jordan Palin
2nd Dan Thompson
3rd Joe Thompson
250cc
1st Sam Norris
2nd Sam Hagon
3rd Archie Wareham
125cc
1st Luke Harrison
2nd Freddie Fox Baron
3rd Sonny Springer
THURSDAY MAY 16:
PREMIERSHIP
Belle Vue 54 (Max Fricke 15)
King’s Lynn 36 (Robert Lambert 11+1, Michael Palm Toft 11+1)
Premiership points: Belle Vue 3 King’s Lynn 0
PREMIERSHIP SUPPORTERS’ CUP
Ipswich 52 (Danny King 12+2)
Poole 38 (Josh Grajczonek 11+1)
PSC points: Ipswich 3 Poole 0
SOLENT THREE TEAM TROPHY, at Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight 27 (Danny Ayres 12)
City of Portsmouth 23 (Georgie Wood 11)
City of Southampton 20 (Ryan Terry-Daley 7+1)
WEDNESDAY MAY 15:
CHAMPIONSHIP KO CUP, 1st rnd, 2nd leg Somerset 46 (Chris Harris 14) Redcar 44 (Charles Wright 11) Redcar win 97-82 on aggregate.
Birmingham v Eastbourne - OFF (power outage) Re-staging date: Wednesday May 29 (provisional)
