Shortage of track cyclists: “We’ll have to wait until the next generation is ready”

Since the introduction of the Long Track of Nations, Germany has remained the clear number one in the medal table with ten titles. However, it is also true that seven of the ten World Championship titles were won in the first eight years of the competition, when the German team still had a significantly larger pool of riders on the long track.

As was the case last year – when Jörg Tebbe, in his first season as team manager, even had to step in as a rider himself following various withdrawals – putting together the squad proved difficult again this year. Among others, potential top rider Daniel Spiller was absent through injury, whilst world champions Erik Riss and Martin Smolinski were unavailable.

“It’s a shame when you can’t race against the best. Lukas Fienhage put in a superb performance and we were only five points away from bronze,” noted national coach Tebbe in an interview with SPEEDWEEK.com. “If Daniel Spiller hadn’t been injured and we’d had a bit more luck, we could have challenged for a medal position. Not necessarily the gold medal, but a place on the podium would have been within reach.”

German Long-Track Championships with B-licence riders

The increasingly thinning ranks of top German long-track riders are now also having a devastating impact on the German national team. The German Championship is now being contested by just twelve riders, with the field topped up by riders holding a B licence – a clear indication of the alarming state of long-track speedway in Germany.

Only by drawing from a broad pool of riders – who, ideally, are also well-developed in terms of riding skills on the speedway track – can the top ranks in long-track racing be strengthened, which would in turn offer the national team manager more options. “At the moment, we have a small gap to bridge until the next generation comes through. We have a few strong riders with B licences, but they’ll need a few more years before they’re ready, and we have to bridge that gap as best we can,” said Tebbe, who can only hope that next year there will be greater willingness to compete in the Team World Championship. “We have to see who wants to ride and who doesn’t. There’s always a survey at the start of the year; depending on the responses, I can plan accordingly. From the federation’s point of view, it’s difficult to change the overall situation. But there will certainly be discussions about what could be done. I myself can only report on what’s going well and what’s not, but I can’t decide what needs to be done.”

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