The end for Gollob?
The 2010 world speedway champion – and one of the originals when the championship went multi-round in 1995 – will sit out this year's competitionTomasz Gollob has withdrawn from the 2014 Speedway World Championship, in what could spell the end of a magnificent career for the Polish legend
The 2010 world champion accepted a wildcard spot for the 2014 series back in October, but with the deadline for riders to officially sign-on falling earlier last week the Pole decided to sit out the competition due to unforeseen developments in his sponsorship program.
With a bevy of up and coming riders pushing hard for spots, Gollob is unlikely to be seen at the top flight again.
Gollob’s 2013 season was ended by a fractured vertebrae suffered in a horrifying crash with eventual world champion Tai Woffinden at the Scandinavian FIM Speedway Grand Prix on September 21.
“Tomasz has been a fantastic servant to the FIM Speedway Grand Prix series and will undoubtedly go down as one of the most exciting and naturally gifted riders in the competition’s history,” said world speedway managing director Paul Bellamy. “Winning the world championship at the age of 39 in 2010 was an inspirational achievement. Tomasz never gave up on his dream and finally got his reward.
“We wish him all the very best for the rest of his career and the future and thank him for the many highlights he has given us since he won the first ever Grand Prix staged at Wroclaw in 1995.”
Gollob has been replaced by Briton Chris Harris in the starting line-up for 2014, with the revised line-up as follows:
1 Tai Woffinden (Great Britain)
2 Jaroslaw Hampel (Poland)
3 Niels-Kristian Iversen (Denmark)
4 Greg Hancock (USA)
5 Nicki Pedersen (Denmark)
6 Emil Sayfutdinov (Russia)
7 Matej Zagar (Slovenia)
8 Darcy Ward (Australia)
9 Krzysztof Kasprzak (Poland)
10 Fredrik Lindgren (Sweden)
11 Chris Holder (Australia)
12 Andreas Jonsson (Sweden)
13 Kenneth Bjerre (Denmark)
14 Martin Smolinski (Germany)
15 Chris Harris (Great Britain)
16 WILD CARD
17 FIRST TRACK RESERVE
18 SECOND TRACK RESERVE
QUALIFIED SUBSTITUTES
19 Troy Batchelor (Australia)
20 Michael Jepsen Jensen (Denmark)
The championship will commence in New Zealand on April 5. To purchase tickets, click here.
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