DANISH METAL LEAGUE: set for 2021

After missing out entirely on the 2020 season due to Coronavirus, the Danish speedway season has already set out plans for the coming year’s Metal League competition, promising that several different strategies are in place to ensure that racing will occur this year.

And the league is aiming to go big and better than ever before.

Firstly, there will be a League Cup competition in additional to the traditional league.

That has partly been made possible due to the expansion of the Metal League. They have been hoping to expand for several years, and in 2021 two new teams will finally join the six from 2019 as SES – Southern Jutland Elite Speedway, who are based at the well known Vojens track that has featured in the SGP and SEC competitions, and Nordjysk Elite Speedway in Brovst.

As well as more teams, a much wider and improved roster of riders is set to race in Denmark. The teams are completely different to the 2019 season when the Metal League was an almost an entirely Danish affair.

Even though Ekstraliga has said that riders in the top Polish division can only race in one other foreign league, all of Denmark’s top riders, except 2018 SEC winner, Leon Madsen, have already signed for a club, according to the league’s webpage on 4 January.

Niels Kristian Iversen (Esjberg)

Kenneth Bjerre (GKS Liga)

Nicki Pedersen (Holsted Tigers)

Anders Thomsen (SES)

Nicolai Klindt (SES)

Mikkel Michelsen (Slangerup)

Michael Jepsen Jensen (Slangerup)

Peter Kildemand (Team Fjelsted)

Marcus Birkemose (Team Fjelsted)

Slangerup do not just have two of the top Danish riders in the team with Jespen Jensen and Michelsen with all their international experience in SGP and SEC, but have one of season’s top signing with Slovenian SGP rider, Matej Zagar joining the team. Not only that, they will be joined by Australian, Rohan Tungate, who had a fantastic season in eWinner 1 with Lodz, scoring an incredible 2.348 average. The club, which lies just 35 km northwest of the captial city, Copenhagen, will surely be favourites at the betting agency this year.

But Tungate and Zagar are not the only non-Danes set to race in Metal League in 2021.

Polish legend and veteran, Piotr Protasiewicz, who will be 46 yrs on 25th January, returns to racing outside Poland staying in his homeland in 2020, as he had planned before COVID-19 broke out across the world. He will be racing in Team Varde Elitesport with another experienced Pole, Tomasz Galpinski who will be 40 yrs in the summer. The club will have Denmark’s 2020 U21 World Championship representative, Tim Sörensen from the host nation.

But it is not just veterans, but some younger riders from the sport’s top nation who are opting to take up the challenge of racing in southern Scandinavia. Oskar Fajfer (GSK), Dawid Lampart (Slangerup) and Daniel Kazcmarek (Nordjysk) are all hoping to make their mark in foreign shale in 2021.

Notable other non-Danish riders joining the league in 2021 include Finland’s Timo Lahti (Nordjysk), who had a sensational performance in the SEC in 2020 and Germany’s top rider, Kai Huckenbeck (SES) as well as Frenchman, David Bellego (GKS).

For a complete list see Metal Speedway League’s own page, https://metalspeedwayleague.dk/trupperne-til-2021-er-klar/