Daniil Ivanov begins the defence of his World Championship on Saturday when the first Final of the 2015 MOTUL FIM Ice Speedway Gladiators World Championship is held in Krasnogorsk near Moscow. Ivanov who won the 2014 title by a comfortable margin of 11 points could face a tougher battle this year with some heavyweight opposition from the start.
A major talking point has been the nomination of eight times world champion Nikolay Krasnikov as the Wild Card for this meeting. Krasnikov retired from World Championship racing after winning his last title in 2012 but has continued to ride in national races and is Russian Individual champion again for 2015. Whilst he has no sights on another title he is sure to want to demonstrate that he can still mix it at this level and will be keen to make this point when he meets Ivanov first in Heat 12 where he will have the advantage of a better start gate.
Krasnikov is also mentor to last year’s runner up Dimitry Koltakov and will no doubt be giving his protégé advice in the pits although he will not be easing up on the track. Koltakov has a question mark over his fitness following a major crash during the Russian Final, ironically involving Krasnikov, and suffered leg injuries sufficiently serious to force his withdrawal from that meeting. It remains to be seen whether this will affect his performances in the series.
Igor Kononov had looked strong in the early rounds of the Russian Championship but a poor performance in Ufa put paid to his chances. He also suffered falls in the Russian Final but thankfully without serious injury and will be looking to put that experience behind him as he embarks on his quest for world championship glory.
The two Austrian competitors, Franky Zorn and Harald Simon will be looking to put their disappointing 2014 season behind them and already look to have found their best form. For the second successive year Simon travelled to far away Blagoveschchensk close to Russia’s east coast for training and racing in the Russian league – a drive of some 16,000 kilometres and a measure of his dedication to his success. Zorn, seemingly recovered from the serious injury which ruled him out of last year’s series has been racing a little closer to home in Sweden and won the World Championship Qualifier in Strömsund earlier this month. Also in the Swedish League the Klatovsky brothers have seen action with the Bokarna club and Vitaly Khomitsevich top scored in two meetings for Strömsund.
Hans Weber secured his place in the 2015 line up thanks to a solid performance in the Qualifying Round where he finished in fourth position after falling in the Final and Günter Bauer’s selection will have been helped by his courageous performance in Inzell last year where he rode only two weeks after breaking his arm. Bauer has been training in Austria and as an unusual part of his preparation for this meeting will be a guest of the Moscow University of Sport where he will be explaining the sport of Ice Speedway to some of the students. Stefan Pletschacher completes the German trio and will hope for a successful start to the season and an improvement on last year’s disappointing results.
Sweden’s wily veteran Stefan Svensson is joined this year by promising compatriot Per-Anders Lindström and although the Swedes have only two representatives there are four young men on the list of reserves for the series who will make the most of any opportunities which may come along during the season. The future is looking good for Swedish Ice Racing with so many promising riders in the pipeline.
The newly-crowned Finnish Champion Mats Järf, hero of last year’s Team Final is the Nordic country’s only representative and if he can repeat the form he showed in Togliatti on that occasion he could cause more than a few surprises.
The meeting in Krasnogorsk starts at 15.00 local time on Saturday and at 13.00 on Sunday afternoon. FIM Jury President is Ilkka Teromaa from Finland with Marek Wojaczek FIM Referee.
The draw made by FIM is:
Ballot N. Riding N° Name FMN Country
1 6 Jan Klatovsky ACCR Czech Republic
2 12 Hans Weber DMSB Germany
3 5 Stefan Svensson SVEMO Sweden
4 16 (WC) Nikolay Krasnikov MFR Russia
5 11 Vitaly Khomitsevich MFR Russia
6 7 Günter Bauer DMSB Germany
7 1 Daniil Ivanov MFR Russia
8 14 Antonin Klatovsky ACCR Czech Republic
9 10 Franz Zorn OeAMTC Austria
10 3 Dimitry Khomitsevich MFR Russia
11 8 Stefan Pletschacher DMSB Germany
12 13 Mats Järf SML Finland
13 15 Harald Simon OeAMTC Austria
14 2 Dimitry Koltakov MFR Russia
15 9 Per-Anders Lindström SVEMO Sweden
16 4 Igor Kononov MFR Russia
Reserve 1 17 Sergey Makarov MFR Russia
Reserve 2 18 Aleksey Kolganov
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Ice Speedway Gladiators ready for Krasnogorsk!
