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NEWS
Jason Crump calls time
The three-time world speedway champion has decided to bow out of the sport, conceding his aching body can no longer allow him to ride at full tiltAfter a bruising couple of years, Australia’s speedway great Jason Crump has drawn the curtain on his illustrious career.
The three-time world champion has conceded that he no longer has the physical presence to “do the things I wanted to do”. The 37-year-old had already announced his retirement from the Speedway Grand Prix (SGP) series, and rode his last meeting in Torun on October 6.
Crump will undergo further surgery on a troublesome collarbone injury in April, which would have kept him out of the saddle in European domestic competition for between three and six months. But now it’s all academic as the three-time world speedway champion prepares for full-time life on the Gold Coast with his wife Mel and two children, Mia and Seth.
"I always expected a lot of myself when I rode, and if you can’t quite get yourself into the position that you want, or aren’t physically able to do what you want, it starts to become frustrating,” Crump told www.speedwaygp.com.
“I had a conversation with the doctor on Wednesday (December 12), and don’t think for one minute he told me I can’t ride ever again. He didn’t say ‘you can’t ride’; he just gave me his professional opinions.
“As a guy who I trust a lot, he’s helped me in the past, I took on board seriously what he said. So I think it’s a good decision to make, a good time to make it, probably the right time to make it.
“The riding was getting harder and harder for me because I just couldn’t do the things I wanted to do. There was nothing major, but the problems I’ve got are with both arms now, so it was getting to be more and more difficult for me.
“I always expected a lot of myself when I rode, and if you can’t quite get yourself into the position that you want, or aren’t physically able to do what you want, it starts to become frustrating.
“When everything was explained to me, it wasn’t a difficult conclusion for me to come to.”
On top of the three SGP titles he won in 2004, 2006 and 2009, Crump holds the distinction of spending a 10 years in the world championship’s top three from 2001 to 2010 – a record equalled only by five-time world champion Ove Fundin between 1956 and 1965.
The record 23-time SGP winner appeared in 77 finals and is the only man to have scored over 2000 points in the Grand Prix series. He also lifted the FIM Speedway World Cup in 2001 and 2002, as well as the old World Team Cup in 1999.
“We’re very lucky, we’re a close family, the kids are in school here and things could very easily be worse. This is just the next part of our lives. It’s going to start a year sooner than we thought it would.”
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Written byBikesales Staff
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