Speedway: Following historic league success, Norick Blödorn rode in the Prague final

Norick Blödorn won the title with Toruń last weekend in his first season in Poland’s top league (Ekstraliga). The northern German laid the foundations for his team’s success in the first final race on home turf with a 55–35 victory, meaning the team could travel to Wrocław for the return leg with a comfortable lead.

“We’d trained again in the week leading up to the race in Wrocław and there was a really good atmosphere in the team,” Blödorn told SPEEDWEEK.com. He has established himself in the Ekstraliga this year and became the first German to win Poland’s top team title. “This is a huge success for me and the icing on the cake of the season in Poland, which has gone quite well for me. At the start of the season, I scored more points at home than away, but in the final it was exactly the opposite. I managed quite well in Wrocław, which I hadn’t always managed in the past.”

After the 22-year-old contributed four points to the victory at home, he stepped up his performance in the return race in Wrocław, contributing six points to his team’s 46–44 victory and successful title defence. “We all stayed on in Wrocław; a whole hall was hired at short notice and we spent the evening together,” said Blödorn, who didn’t have much time to celebrate as he was already competing in Prague on Monday evening.

Prague: Bad luck for Norick Blödorn in the final

In Prague, Norick was among the top scorers; he was the only German competing in the ‘Lubos Tomicek Memorial’. With twelve points after the heats, he was joint third alongside the American Luke Becker, behind the hitherto unbeaten Jan Kvech and Andzejs Lebedevs, who had scored 13 points. In the final, Blödorn got off to the best start alongside Lebedevs, but was then forced wide by the Czech rider Kvech in the opening bend and dropped to the back of the field before being eliminated. In the battle for victory, Lebedevs managed to hold off the relentlessly attacking Czech rider and, unlike the previous day in Pardubice, crossed the line first ahead of Kvech.

Blödorn could win another title

Following the German Individual Championship and his victory in the Polish league, Norick could even win yet another title in the final races of the season – in the British league: the finals between Blödorn’s Belle Vue Aces and the Sheffield Tigers are scheduled for this coming Thursday and Monday. Between the final races in England, he will be racing in Germany once more on Saturday, at the international meeting in Dohren.

Topic of the week

A stuttering start to the Bahrain Grand Prix: the FIA narrowly avoids a fiasco like the one in Indianapolis in 2005

Fans could hardly believe their eyes at what they witnessed at the Bahrain Grand Prix: cars crawling along, racing cars that simply came to a standstill. The FIA narrowly avoided a fiasco like the one at Indy in 2005.

Mathias Brunner

Read More

Results of the ‘Lubos Tomicek Memorial’ in Prague, Czech Republic: