Double Australian champions on Friday night

Last night saw an unusual event for Australian speedway as first Jaimon Lidsey won the Junior World Championships, whilst 1.5 hours later just 600 km away the previous Australian Junior World Champion, Max Fricke, won his first ever SGP match in Toruń.

Lidsey best on the night

Lidsey dropped just one point in 7 heats as he took gold, whilst the only person to beat him on the night was Dominik Kubera (POL), who has silver ahead of Lokomotiv Daugavpils rider, Oleg Michialov (LAT) was third.

Fricke’s difficult season

Over in Toruń, the 2016 Junior World Champion, Fricke was setting up for his best performance of the year, and arguably his career.

2020 has not been kind to the Australian who has struggled at Wroclaw in the Ekstraliga where he came in 34th in rider average with a 1.517. By comparison Lidsey had 1.803 putting him in 24th.

Fricke starts and finishes well 

But in Toruń things went well right from the start when he won the opening heat of the night from the inside gate. Back in the red helmet for his last heat he also won giving him a semifinal place.

From the onwards there were no mistake and he took the semi from gate 3 and, most importantly, the final where he beat two world champions, Tai Woffinden and Bartosz Zmarzlik, as well as Maciej Janowski. 

Zmarzlik favourite to win

Zmarzlik retains his first place by 8 points over Woffinden and barring a disaster tomorrow, should be crowned World Champion. 

However only two points separates Woffinden and third placed Fredrik Lindgren. That said past performance at Toruń says that Woffinden, will increase his lead as he has much better results at the track than the Swede who have never made a final at the Marion Rose Arena.