The FIM Track Racing Youth Gold Trophy 125cc is run as part of the Youth Programme Project of the Track Racing Commission and this year the event was held on Saturday in the beautiful town of Pilsen in the Czech Republic. The organisation was first class in a well prepared stadium with races run on the regular speedway track under a twenty heat format. There were 16 riders representing five nations taking part and although there were differences in the standards between the competitors, there were some entertaining races for the few hundred spectators present. In bright sunny weather, all riders were given the opportunity to practice before the meeting and the tricky track showed the inexperience of some of the participants. However this was masked by their enthusiastic approach and when the meeting started in the late afternoon, there was some brilliant racing. In the 20 heats there was only one accident, thankfully without injury, and racing was completed in less than two hours. Defending champion Kyle Bickley from Great Britain was in superior form from his first race and cruised to an unbeaten 15 points to retain his title. The destination of the other medal places was closely fought and it was not until Heat 18 that Pole Marcin Turowski secured the silver medal by beating his nearest rivals, Dutchman William Kruit and Marvin Wiegert from Germany. Best of the home riders was Petr Chlupac with 10 points in 5th place.
Final scores were:
1 Kyle BICKLEY GBR 15
2 Marcin TUROWSKIPOL 14
3 William KRUIT NED 13
4 Marvin WIEGERT GER 11
5 Petr CHLUPAC CZE 10
6 Finn LOHEIDERGER 10
7 Vaclav KVECH CZE 8
8 Christian WAGEMANS NED 8
9 Kevin LUCK GER 7
10 Tim WUNDERER GER 6
11 Jeffrey SIJBESMA NED 6
12 Jan KVECH CZE 6
13 Margriet DIEVER NED 3
14 Lukas VINTER CZE 2
15 Dusan HLAVACEK CZE 1
16 Karol ZUPINSKIPOL 0
Racing was covered by the local TV station and there has been much interest on the internet and on social media with over 3300 visits on Facebook. Thanks to the organiserLeopold Klima and his colleagues this was a highly successful meeting and gave all the young riders a great experience of international competition. These may be the speedway stars of tomorrow due, in no small way to the encouragement and guidance they receive at events such as this.