Ekstraliga Review - Round Three

Image courtesy of Darren Bott

The two clubs who were both without a league point going into the meeting produced the match of the season so far, with Lambert playing a starring role. The home side edged through despite providing only five of the 15 race wins, and four of them came from the Great Britain man who again lined up in the No.8 role and piled up a score of 13+1 from six rides. Lambert won his first three outings, the third of which came in a thrilling battle with Krzysztof Kasprzak and Szymon Wozniak, before his run was finally ended by World Champion Bartosz Zmarzlik in Heat 10.

Rybnik looked set to fall to defeat when Kacper Woryna was excluded from Heat 12 after clashing with Wozniak, only for youngster Kamil Nowacki to hold on for a remarkable win in the re-run, ironically against the side who had loaned him to Rybnik.

Lambert was on the wrong end of a 5-1 against Zmarzlik and Anders Thomsen in Heat 13, but he hit back brilliantly in Heat 14 to combine with Vaclav Milik, putting Rybnik back ahead. And although Zmarzlik competed a paid maximum in Heat 15, Woryna and Sergey Logachev held off Anders Thomsen in a close finish to seal a narrow 46-44 win and lift their side off the foot of the table.

Elsewhere on Sunday, Czestochowa again showed their strength by beating Wroclaw 53-37, for whom Tai Woffinden was limited to one race win in six rides. The treble World Champion bemoaned his lack of speed after his first outing, where he made the start but was swallowed up by Jason Doyle and Pawel Przedpelski, and he had to wait until Heat 12 to get a win on the board when he got the better of his former Wolverhampton team-mate Fredrik Lindgren.

Woffinden was then third in a couple of consolation 4-2s in Heats 13 and 14 but there was no answer to maximum man Leon Madsen in the last race. Once again Wroclaw – who are set to bring in Chris Holder as a ‘guest’ - only had four scoring riders, Woffinden finishing on eight, whilst Dan Bewley again had little chance to make an impression, being pulled out of his races after finishing fourth in Heats 4 and 5, the latter seeing him on the pace with Lindgren. Czestochowa are joined on maximum points at the top of the table by Leszno, who defeated Lublin 53-37 on Saturday with Emil Sayfutdinov and Piotr Pawlicki in strong form.

Meanwhile Zielona Gora moved up to third place with a hard-fought 48-42 win over Grudziadz, Michael Jepsen Jensen and Patryk Dudek securing a 5-1 over Kenneth Bjerre and Nicki Pedersen in a last-heat decider even though the visiting riders made the best starts in the crucial race.