Great Britain take Silver in the Monster Energy FIM Speedway of Nations Final
Great Britain Speedway Team came within inches of pulling off a sensational victory in the inaugural Speedway of Nations tournament only to be denied by Russia in the final heat.
GB put on a stunning performance in Wroclaw, Poland and actually headed the leaderboard at the end of the 42 qualifying races, meaning they went straight through to the all-or-nothing final against either Russia or Poland.
It was a brilliant display from Tai Woffinden and Robert Lambert that got them there, with Woffinden in spectacular form - he dropped just a single point from 13 races over the course of two days.
Russia edged out Poland in the Semi-Final to seal their place in the showpiece race, and their partnership of Artem Laguta and Emil Sayfutdinov narrowly held off Lambert to seal a 3-3 and overall victory.
It was a heartbreaking way to lose out on Gold, with Britain actually scoring the most points over the 44 races, but Captain Tai Woffinden was proud of the team's performance and feels positive about the future.
He said: “It would’ve been nice to win, we had the pace yesterday but the track was a bit different today and it caught us out a little bit. We made some corrections, but it was a harder night tonight than yesterday, I don’t know whether it was because it was two days and yesterday I was fresher, but I felt a bit fatigued tonight.
We got a Silver medal and it’s positive going forward, our set up is very professional and now we’ve got this event out the way we can build on it and move forwards to make sure we come back stronger every year.
Tai Woffinden
“We got a Silver medal and it’s positive going forward, our set up is very professional and now we’ve got this event out the way we can build on it and move forwards to make sure we come back stronger every year. We’ve got a good platform now, I’m really proud of my team mates, we’re gutted to not win but we’ll take Silver and make sure we change it to a Gold next time.”
Team boss Alun Rossiter was extremely proud of his charges, saying: "Obviously we are gutted not to win because we came so close but second is still a brilliant result, and we are so proud of the lads. The three of them, Tai, Robert and Craig, have been a pleasure to work with and they have been fantastic on and off the track. "We scored the most points, pretty much always led the score chart and we even won the final race, so not to win is a bit gutting but it gives us an even bigger incentive to come back next year and go one better.
"It's been a great week, the whole set-up has been superb and we've taken a huge step forward in the right direction so we can be really positive about the future."