2014 Speedway European Championship

The 2014 Speedway European Championship season was the second season of the Speedway European Championship (SEC) era, and decided the 14th UEM Individual Speedway European Championship. It was the second series under the promotion of One Sport Lts. of Poland.

2014 Speedway European Championship
Season details
Dates6 July – 19 September
Events4
Cities4
Countries4
Riders15 permanents
1 wild card(s)
2 track reserves
Heats(in 4 events)
Winners
Champion RUS Emil Sayfutdinov
Runner-up DEN Peter Kildemand
3rd place DEN Nicki Pedersen

The championship was won by Russia's Emil Sayfutdinov, six points ahead of Danish rider Peter Kildemand. Third place went to another Danish rider, Nicki Pedersen, who was another four points behind Kildemand. Pedersen had won the opening two races of the season, before Sayfutdinov moved ahead in the standings after a win at Holsted in Denmark. A fourth-place finish in Częstochowa – an event won by Russian Grigory Laguta – was enough to give Sayfutdinov the title.

Qualification

For the 2014 season, 15 permanent riders were joined at each SEC Final by one wild card and two track reserves.

Defending champion, Martin Vaculík from Slovakia was automatically invited to participate in all final events. Nicki Pedersen and Grigorij Laguta secured their participation in all final events thanks to being in the top 3 of the general classification in the 2013 season.

Emil Sayfutdinov, Andreas Jonsson and Tomasz Gollob received and accepted a wild card to compete in the 2014 Speedway European Championships.[1][2]

Qualified riders
#Riders2013 placeSEC Ch placeAppearancePrevious appearances in series
1 Martin Vaculík12nd2013
5 Nicki Pedersen22nd2013
111 Grigorij Laguta32nd2013
20 Tomasz Gollob72nd2013
89 Emil Sayfutdinov92nd2013
100 Andreas Jonsson–1st
33 Adrian Miedziński–11st
27 Janusz Kolodziej–21st
25 Peter Kildemand–31st
313 Kenni Larsen–41st
13 Jonas Davidsson–51st
19 Jurica Pavlic1262nd2013
69 Patryk Dudek–71st
169 Andrzejs Lebedevs (wildcard)–81st
84 Martin Smolinski (wildcard)–1st

Controversy

The European Union Motorcycle (FIM-Europe) introduced a formal ban that prevented riders in the Speedway Grand Prix taking part in the Speedway European Championship. The decision had been rumoured for weeks before being officially confirmed on 3 November 2013. That meant that all riders taking part in the World Championship could not be regular participants of the SEC. Amongst the riders who received permanent wild cards from the SEC were Emil Sayfutdinov, Andreas Jonsson and Tomasz Gollob.[3]

Shortly after this, riders started to show the support to the SEC and their displeasure about the situation. As a result of this, already invited rider Tomasz Gollob, Andreas Jonsson, Nicki Pedersen and Emil Sayfutdinov sent an open letter to the FIM-Europe requesting the solution of the situation.[4]

A statement from series organisers One Sport Lts. on 17 November 2013 pointed out that the ban was inconsistent with European law and announced an intention to take required legal action. They used the European Union Microsoft competition case as an example.[5]

On 29 November, Emil Sayfutdinov announced that he was prepared to drop out of the 2014 SGP series in order to ride in the Speedway European Championship. As a reason, he explained that his Russian sponsors insisted their logos were seen in their country and SEC tournaments were transmitted by a Eurosport channel available in Russia, whereas Grand Prix competitions were not shown by any TV channel in Russia. Moreover, one of SEC tournaments was due to be held in Russia in 2014.[6] On the same day, Tomasz Gollob also announced that he would participate in the Speedway European Championship.

On 6 December, Janek Konikiewicz, a representative for One Sport Lts., tweeted that "It seems that there will be no ban for SGP riders in SEC 2014. Another strong signal, that we have won – but still nothing official".[7] On 20 December, he also tweeted another message: "OFFICIAL: One Sport received an official letter from FIM-Europe with information that they advised FIM to not ban any riders from SEC", which basically ended the story.[8]

On 7 February 2014, the FIM board of directors officially took the decision to ban World Championship participants from participating in any kind of European Championships tournament. One Sport LLC declared their disapproval with the FIM's decision.[9][10] Shortly after, Tomasz Gollob announced that he would refuse his wild card invitation for the SGP Bydgoszcz tournament, whereas Andreas Jonsson decided to refuse his SEC invitation in favour of participating in SGP.[11] Emil Sayfutdinov asked to drop his application for SGP.[12]

On 28 February 2014, the FIM board of directions officially announced that the previous ban for SGP riders to participate in SEC was delayed until 1 January 2015.[13]

Changes

In the 2014 season, the participating riders had the possibility to choose the number which would be on their race jacket. In the past, the riders in all tournaments had an obligatory number which was given to them by the organizers. During the first tournament, the defending champion wore a yellow race jacket and for all following tournaments, the current general classification leader wore the jacket.[14]

Calendar

Qualification
Main article: 2014 Speedway European Championship qualification

The calendar for qualification consisted of 3 Semifinal events and one SEC Challenge event.[15] At the end of March, the first semifinal round was moved from the Ukraine to Latvia.

RoundDateCity and venueWinnerRunner-up3rd placed4th placedResults
Semifinal 1 17 May Daugavpils, Latvia

Spīdveja centrs (Length: 373m)

 Michael J. Jensen Andrzej Lebiediew Patryk Dudek Maciej Janowski results
Semifinal 2 17 May Krsko, Slovenia

Matija Gubec Stadium (Length: 387m)

 Maksim Bogdanow Przemyslaw Pawlicki Andriej Karpow Jurica Pavlic results
Semifinal 3 25 May Žarnovica, Slovakia

Speedwaystadium (Length: 400 m)

 Janusz Kolodziej Peter Kildemand Jonas Davidsson Adrian Miedzinski results
SEC Challenge 8 June Debrecen, Hungary

Speedway Stadium (Length: 398 m)

 Adrian Miedzinski Janusz Kolodziej Peter Kildemand Kenni Larsen results

Championship Series
Main article: 2014 Speedway European Championship finals

A four-event calendar was scheduled for the final series,[16][17] with events in Germany, Russia, Denmark and Poland.

RoundDateCity and venueWinnerRunner-up3rd placed4th placedResults
1 6 July Güstrow, Germany

Speedway Stadion Güstrow (Length: 298m)

 Nicki Pedersen Peter Kildemand Janusz Kołodziej Tomasz Gollob results
2 20 July Tolyatti, Russia

Mega-Lada Stadium (Length: 353m)

 Nicki Pedersen Emil Sayfutdinov Patryk Dudek Martin Vaculík results
3 9 August Holsted, Denmark

Moldow Arena (Length: 300m)

 Emil Sayfutdinov Peter Kildemand Martin Vaculík Maksims Bogdanovs results
4 19 September Częstochowa, Poland

Częstochowa Arena (Length: 368m)

 Grigory Laguta Nicki Pedersen Peter Kildemand Emil Sayfutdinov results

Classification
Pos. Rider Points
1 (89) Emil Sayfutdinov 54 11151315
2 (25) Peter Kildemand 48 11121312
3 (5) Nicki Pedersen 44 1413611
4 (1) Martin Vaculík 41 714128
5 (27) Janusz Kołodziej 38 146810
6 (21) Maksims Bogdanovs 34 88117
7 (19) Jurica Pavlic 31 39118
8 (100) Andreas Jonsson 31 9598
9 (20) Tomasz Gollob 27 9459
10 (169) Andžejs Ļebedevs 22 7843
11 (33) Adrian Miedziński 21 9543
12 (111) Grigory Laguta 17 –––17
13 (69) Patryk Dudek 16 412––
14 (313) Kenni Larsen 14 6332
15 (13) Jonas Davidsson 14 5531
16 (84) Martin Smolinski 13 53–5
17 (16) Niels-Kristian Iversen 10 ––10–
18 (15) Michael Jepsen Jensen 9 ––9–
19 (16) Rune Holta 7 –––7
20 (16) Christian Hefenbrock 4 4–––
- (16) Vitaly Bielousov 4 –4––
22 (16) Rasmus Jensen 2 ––2–
23 (18) Ķasts Puodžuks 1 ––1–
- (17) Patrick Hougaard 1 ––1–
25 (17) Kai Huckenbeck 0 0–––
- (17) Artur Czaja 0 –––0
(18) Tobias Busch — ns–––
(17) Sergey Agaltsov — –ns––
(18) Michail Litvinov — –ns––
(18) Borys Miturski — –––ns
2014 Speedway European Champion

Emil Sayfutdinov
First title
gollark: Or even any.
gollark: I suspect Terra has not looked closely at many of the alternatives.
gollark: also, it is not.
gollark: Pong.
gollark: "No, I do not want to be corrected, for you are being *too smart*!"

See also

References
  1. "Gollob will start in SEC 2014!". speedwayeuro.com. 29 November 2013. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  2. "Emil Sajfutdinow znalazł sponsorów na Grand Prix! Jest jednak jeden warunek" (in Polish). sportowefakty.pl. 29 November 2013. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  3. "Grand Prix riders banned from SEC!". speedwayeuro.com. 4 November 2013. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  4. "GP Stars Frustrated By European Ban!". speedway365.com. 7 November 2013. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  5. "Emil Sajfutdinow chce unieważnienia Entry Form!". sportowefakty.pl. 14 February 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  6. "Emil Commits To European Championship!". speedway365.com. 29 November 2013. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  7. "It seems that there will be no ban for SGP riders in SEC 2014". twitter.com. 6 December 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  8. "OFFICIAL: One Sport received an official letter from FIM-Europe". twitter.com. 20 December 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  9. "Statement of One Sport LLC according to FIM decisions". sportowefakty.pl. 16 February 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  10. "Znamy treść pisma FIM kierowanego do One Sport!". sportowefakty.pl. 13 February 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  11. "Jonsson zrezygnował z SEC! "Andreas chce być mistrzem świata"". sportowefakty.pl. 14 February 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  12. "Emil Sajfutdinow chce unieważnienia Entry Form!". sportowefakty.pl. 14 February 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  13. "Oficjalnie: FIM zawiesza zakaz łączenia startów w SGP i SEC!". sportowefakty.pl. 28 February 2014. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  14. "Riders themselves will choose the starting numbers". speedwayeuro.com. 8 January 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
  15. "SEC semi-finals, May 2014: Rivne, Krsko and Zarnovica. SEC Challenge, 08 June 2014: Debrecen" (in Polish). sportowefakty.pl. 7 December 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  16. "EM-deltävling till Skandinavien" (in Swedish). speedwaynyheter.se. 22 November 2013. Retrieved 4 December 2013.
  17. "SEC semi-finals, May 2014: Rivne, Krsko and Zarnovica. SEC Challenge, 08 June 2014: Debrecen" (in Polish). sportowefakty.pl. 7 December 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
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