PETER LJUNG: looking to return to the top

Last year, Peter Ljung was chosen by SVEMO to be Sweden’s representative for the final of the TAURON SEC as the qualifiers were cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

And this year the organisation has again given its vote to the 38-year-old to put on the blue and yellow race jacket and take part in the European Championship qualifier on 1 May in Debrecen, Hungary.

2020 was the second time the Swede has taken part in TAURON SEC after making his debut in 2016. And whilst he did show his potential when he beat eventual champion, Robert Lambert in Heat 7 at Rybnik, we only saw very small glimpses of the “top draw” performance he is capable of when he finished in a disappointing 14^th place.

The strangest season in speedway history started without any racing. So, in March Ljung decided to use his skills to help out his local community in Vetlanda instead. He took to his bike and delivered food to elderly people who could not go out because of lockdown.

But when racing finally started in Sweden in August, he was involved in a dramatic crash in the very first match of the season against Dackarna. As he skidded across the shale, his bike hit the barrier and the force of the impact catapulted Ljung over the fencing – straight into one of the stadium’s floodlight. The rider left the arena unconscious in an ambulance and spent the next 24 hours in the hospital, “You can’t mess about with your head,” the veteran said to Swedish paper Sportbladet on his return to racing, “broken bones and ribs heal, but the head is something completely different”.

Obviously, that affected his performance at both the TAURON SEC and in Sweden. But his results in eWinner1 with Unia Tarnow were still impressive where he finished with a 1.839 average. That placed him in 20th place in the individual ranking placing him above riders such as Kai Huckenbeck and Peter Kildemand.

2020 was a year that the rider will probably want to forget. Always one to speak his mind, he said he found racing in empty arena almost “pointless” when he was interviewed by speedwayfans.se.

He continued by telling the Swedish site that his aim for the year is to get back to his form of 2019. Two years ago, he finished as the third best rider in eWinner 1 with an impressive 2.339 average and in Elitserien where he was the top Swedish rider with 1.962. He also won the Allsvenskan with Nyköping Griparna and was the top scorer in the team.

The veteran Swede will be racing with Vetlanda in his home country and newly promoted Wilki Krosno in eWinner1. A return to that kind of form he showed in 2019 and Ljung could be fighting for a podium spot in June once he has got through the qualifier in Hungary.