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The Medeu Stadium nestles in the hills outside the country’s capital providing a spectacular backdrop to the highest ice racing track in the world and fittingly last weekend, the track and the Ice Speedway Gladiators provided nearly 10,000 spectators with racing of the highest order as the riders battled towards their goal of world championship gold.After 46 races over two days the lead in the championship chase is still held by current holder Dimitry Koltakov but his advantage has been reduced to only 4 points as his fellow Russians fight to overtake him.
Daniil Ivanov made massive strides towards regaining the World Championship with an unbeaten 21 points on the second day. Two times champion Ivanov suffered a torrid 2015 season troubled by injury and finished 27 points behind Koltakov in conceding his title. In Almaty he shrugged off his disappointing display in Krasnogorsk last month and, dropping only 2 points over the whole meeting, hauled himself into second place in the current standings equal to Igor Kononov who also enjoyed an impressive meeting.
There were mixed fortunes for the other contenders ; Dmitry Khomitsevitch reached the final on both days but a disqualification from Sunday’s final, when he pushed Kononov into the straw bales, leaves him slightly adrift of the leading group. Kononov was forced to use his second machine in the restart of the final and, clearly underpowered, was unable to challenge Ivanov. Young pretender Egor Myshkovets was not fully fit and could not produce his anticipated performance, even slipping to a rare dead heat when he tied for third place with Gunter Bauer in Heat 39.
Franz Zorn again showed his liking for this track and his fighting 24 points over the two days took him clearly into 6th place overall and the best of the non-Russians. Fellow Austrian Manfred Seifter again impressed but after a promising start a fall when leading Koltakov in Heat 32 restricted his scoring. Koltakov was unable to avoid the fallen Seifter who suffered a knee injury and, although he qualified for his second succesive semi final, was unable to progress further.
Ove Ledström did not enjoy the best of fortunes and his youthful enthusiasm brought him two disqualifications on the second day. He ties with veteran Stefan Svensson who was the best of the Swedes.
Disappointingly for the local fans, Wild Card Denis Slepukin withdrew from the meeting after a heavy fall in his second race.
Leading Scorers after Final 2 (Almaty scores in brackets):
•Dmitry Koltakov – Russia (16+16) 69
•Daniil Ivanov - Russia (19+21)65
•Igor Kononov - Russia (19+18)65
•Dmitry Khomitsevich – Russia (16+14) 60
•Egor Myshkovets – Russia (8+9.5)48.5
•Franz Zorn – Austria (11+13) 40
•Nicolai Krasnikov - Russia (-) 33
•Stefan Svensson - Sweden (11+8)29
•Ove Ledström -Sweden (8+5) 29
•Manfred Seifter - Austria (8+) 28
Final 3 of the series will take place in two weeks time in Berlin.
Graham Brodie