Australia third in Speedway of Nations
Two powerful performances by 2017 world individual champion Jason Doyle helped the Aussies finish on the podiumAustralia – Jason Doyle, Max Fricke and Jaimon Lidsey – has finished third in the thrilling 2019 Speedway of Nations, behind Russia and Poland.
The Italian-hosted final was held over two separate nights, with Australia on top at the halfway mark before slipping behind Russia (Emil Sayfutdinov, Artem Laguta and Gleb Chugunov) and Poland (Patryk Dudek, Bartosz Zmarzlik and Maksym Drabik) on day two.
It was the second consecutive victory for Russia, which defeated Poland to spark euphoric scenes at the Anatoly Stepanov Stadium.
Sayfutdinov said: “It’s great. It’s an amazing feeling because it was such a tough meeting. But we did it.
“We made the final and we just focused and concentrated on the final. We won the start and just went forward. I am so happy.
“We worked hard. Saturday was a hard meeting and Sunday was harder. The track at the beginning was different to Saturday.
"We needed to find some good speed, but we did a great job and I want to say thank you very much to my team and everyone who helped me. I feel so great.
“There were a lot of people there. It was our people in Russia and everyone was standing up for us. That’s an amazing feeling.”
Aussies back in the game
Meanwhile, Fricke saluted his side as they claimed bronze – the nation’s first medal in a world team event since Australia finished third in the 2014 Speedway World Cup Final. He said: “It’s awesome for Australia to be up there and get a medal. We haven’t had a medal for a couple of years now.
“I think everyone is really happy. We couldn’t ask for much more. Doyley was absolutely on fire this weekend and he scored an absolute bagful for us. That was great.
“Jaimon (Lidsey) was awesome as the under-21 as well. It’s lucky we had a really good under-21 reserve to help us out.”
MONSTER ENERGY SON FINALS – OVERALL SCORES:
1 RUSSIA 45 – 22 + 23
2 POLAND 47 – 21 + 26
3 AUSTRALIA 41 – 23 + 18
4 DENMARK 37 – 19 + 18
5 SWEDEN 35 – 16 + 19
6 GERMANY 30 – 14 + 16
7 GREAT BRITAIN 16 – 10 + 6
Final Qualifier: Doyle, Laguta, Sayfutdinov, Fricke.
Grand Final: Sayfutdinov, Laguta, Zmarzlik, Dudek
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