The Swedish city of Västervik on the shores of the Baltic Sea will echo to the sound of highly tuned 250cc race engines on Wednesday (12 July) when it hosts both Semi-Finals of the 2023 FIM Speedway Youth World Championship (SGP3).
Previously known as the FIM Speedway Youth World Championship, the series underwent a highly successful relaunch as SGP3 last season by promoter Discovery Sports and gives riders aged under sixteen the opportunity to showcase their skills to Speedway fans around the world so it is very fitting that Wednesday will be a truly international event.
The competition is divided into two eighteen-rider fields who between them will be representing fourteen different nationalities spread across three continents as they bid to win a place in the 2023 FIM Speedway Youth World Championship Final, scheduled for two days later on 14 July at the Skrotfrag Arena in nearby Malilla the night before the FIM Speedway Grand Prix of Sweden.
First, however, they will have to negotiate this year’s Semi-Finals.
The champion last year, Denmark’s Mikkel Andersen will be back to defend the title he won in front of two-and-a-half-thousand fans on a famous night almost eleven months ago in the iconic Olympic Stadium in Wroclaw, Poland.
As was the case last season, the fifteen-year-old son of 1997 British Speedway GP winner Brian Andersen will contest the second Semi-Final in Västervik. He won his Semi-Final last year and must surely start among the favourites on Wednesday, although as we all know there is no such thing as a done deal in a sport as unpredictable as Speedway.
With the age limit helping to ensure a new intake of fresh faces with many of last year’s competitors now being over sixteen years old, Andersen will be the only rider who made the 2022 Final in action in the second Semi-Final, but in the first Semi-Final there will be two familiar faces.
The winner of three Heat races in Wroclaw, Poland’s Kacper Mania was very unlucky to end the night in fourth – just one point behind Andersen – after losing out in a three-way tie-break for second. You can guarantee he will be going all-out to improve on this position, but before he can, he must first fight his way through Wednesday’s Heats.
He will be joined on the Västervik start line by Denmark’s Patrick Kruse who was eighth in the 2022 Final.
The first Semi-Final will also see Villads Pedersen in action. The thirteen-year-old from Denmark is in the form of his young life as we saw just a few days ago when he raced to the 2023 FIM Speedway Youth Gold Trophy with a dominant unbeaten performance on home soil at Holsted.
However, Pedersen’s five wins from five starts came on an 85cc machine and we will not know until the tapes go up in Västervik whether he can carry his speed across to the bigger-capacity machine.
All in all both Semi-Finals are poised to deliver some great racing amongst these rising stars.
FIM Communications