METAL LEAGUE: Holsted lead after Round 2

Last night the second round in the Metal League took place in a sunny spring evening in Denmark. All but one of the matches so far this season have been live-streamed on Facebook meaning the whole world can enjoy Danish speedway for free right now.

3 teams maintained their unbeaten record with Nicki Pedersen’s Holsted Tigers leading the league right now on the basis of points scored. Anders Thomen’s SES are in second whilst Kenneth Bjerre’s GKS Liga are in third place.

Wednesday night’s results

Team Fjelsted 49:39 Region Varde Motorsport

Slangerup Speedway 40: 47 GKS Liga

Esbjerg Vikings 35: 52 SES

Nordyjsk ES 40 : 47 Holsted Tigers

Iversen wins Joker Heat

Only Tomasz Gaplinski, Timo Lahti and Niels-Kristian Iversen (14, Esbjerg) managed to benefit from their joker heat, but for speedway fans the fact that the 38-year-old Dane was back on the track was perhaps than the points scored. The former SGP rider damaged his shoulder blade in the very first heat of Tarnow’s season and the club has certainly missed him, having lost all three of their matches so far. But last night he raced in five heats, four of which he was placed against SES’s A rider, Anders Thomsen. Whilst it ended up 3:1 to Thomsen, Iversen was the only thing that stopped the Gorzow rider taking a paid maximum. So, it was an encouraging performance and a great warm up before Iversen, hopefully, returns to the eWinner 1 duties on 8 May.

Birkemose stuggles

Whilst the majority of riders performed as expected, hotly tipped 17 year old, Marcus Birkemose struggled again with just one point for Fjelsted, perhaps weighed down by the expectation of being the next big thing in Danish speedway. But in the same match it was far worse for Alexander Loktajev who crashed out of heat 1 and did not return for Region Varde.

Top Scorers

Anders Thomsen SES 15+2

Nicolai Klindt SES 15+1

Rohan Tungate SLA 15

Tomasz Gaplinski VAR 15

Thomas Joergensen NES 14+2

Timo Lahti 14+1

Linus Sundström FJE 14+1

Benjamin Basso VAR 14+1

Niels Kristian Iversen ESB 14

Nicki Pedersen HOL 14

Other riders from Australia and Sweden

Sam Masters ESB 3+1

Peter Ljung VAR 2

Jye Etheridge ESB 1