DENMARK: national qualifiers line up confirmed

Redakcja Po Bandzie
13 kwietnia, 2021
17:27

Wednesday 13 April will see one of the most important date in 2021’s speedway calendar for Danish riders – the date of the national qualifier to both the GP Challenge and the SEC. The race will take place at Esbjerg and only five riders will go on to the international competitions.

This year will also see the opportunity for some new stars to rise to the top as a number of the country’s competitors have chosen not to take part or cannot take part because of sickness.

Leon Madsen and Nicki Pedersen have both withdrawn before the original draw was made on 4 April. Madsen is already qualified to both the SGP and SEC so has no need to take part in this event. For Pedersen, he will be relying on getting a Wild Card from the SEC as he came 6^th in the 2020 event after a race off with Bartosz Smektala and is a rider they will surely want to have in the competition as he always draws a big crowd.

Unfortunately, a number of the high-profile Danish riders are not going to be able to make it including Niels-Kristian Iversen, Michael Jepsen Jensen and Anders Thomsen.

Iversen crashed out in the very first heat of the season for his Polish eWinner 1 club, Tarnow, damaging his shoulder blade.

Jepsen Jensen has not lost a heat in eWinner1 yet but unfortunately tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of last week in Denmark.

Current Danish national champion, Thomsen,damaged his meniscus in a fall on Sunday and has been advised to rest by the doctor. However, he has already qualified for the 2021 SGP and said he would not have taken a place in SEC in any case.

2019 SEC champion, Michelsen, will start as favourite having started his season well top scoring for Lublin at the weekend. Like Madsen, he has already qualified for the SEC 2021 and he will only be looking for a SGP Challenge qualifying place.

This means that there is a great opportunity for some new names to take their place on the international scene, for the country that arguably is the best in Europe outside of Poland for producing elite riders.

Jonas Jeppesen (CZE) and Kenneth Bjerre(GRU) have both been able to have one match in the Ekstraliga. The U24 representative, Jeppesen can be pleased with his debut, but the older rider will need to put behind him the disappointment of a poor outing this weekendbefore tomorrow’s race at Esbjerg.

Meanwhile if we look at the riders who have already started the season in eWinner 1 only Rasmus Jensen has completed a full match due to Monday night’s match between Ostroviaand Gneizno being cancelled after just five heats due to heavy rain.

Jensen’s form in the 10 heats he has raced in 2 matches suggests he should be one of the five riders to go forward from tomorrow night’s contest. He is rated as the 9^th best rider in eWinner 1 with a heat average of 2.200.

Four Danish riders got to race at least one heat on Monday and all collected points. Probably the rider who will be most disappointed that the match was rained off was the home team’s U24 rider, Patrick Hansen, who scored a maximum of 6 points from his two heats.

Peter Kildemand, Nicolai Klindt and Fredrik Jakobsen also got to complete at least 4 laps of the track at Ostrow before rained stopped play.

But for many, including Po-Bandzie’s own,Kenneth Kruse Hansen, it will be there first outing of 2021.

Another one of those riders is 18-year-old, Marcus Birkemose. He started at #8 for Gorzow’s opening match against Leszno, but did not get a race. But last year he won the U21 European Championship and was third in the Danish national championship behind winner, Thomsen and second placed Klindt. If he can pull out a similar performance he could well be on the podium tomorrow too.

Rider order, from DMU, 13 April 2021 (riders in Ekstraliga and eWinner 1 highlighted):

1. Mads Hansen

2. Fredrik Jakobsen

3. Mikkel Michelsen

4. Kenneth Bjerre

5. Rasmus Jensen

6. Jonas Seifert-Salk

7. Jonas Jeppesen

8. Marcus Birkemose

9. Rene Bach

10. Jason Joergensen

11. Andreas Lyager