It is just two months to go to the start of the Swedish speedway season, which will see if Eskilstuna Smederna can defend their title and win a record breaking fourth year in a row.

They will have to do it without Swedish SGP rider, Freddie Lindgren, one of several big names who will not be racing in the Elitserien in 2020.

Tai Woffinden has said he will not race in the country and Artem Laguta has also not signed a contract for 2020. The Elitserien has also seen the retirement of Swedish legend, Andreas Jonsson (Rospiggarna) as well as the retirement from Indianerna of veteran Polish rider, Piotr Protasiewicz.

However, Swedish fans will still get to see world champion, Bartosz Zmarzlik (Vetlanda) and European Champion, Mikkel Michelsen (Indianerna) in 2020.

Without Lindgren on the scene, SGP rider, Antonio Lindbäck (Masarna) and some younger Swedish names will have the chance to shine this year.

How will it go for Swedish champion Jacob Thorssell (Dackarna) and how about the top Swedish riders from last year, Peter Ljung (Vetlanda), Kim Nilsson (Masarna) and Oliver Berntzon (Dackarna)?

Not to mention a series of younger riders, Christoffer Selvin, Phillip Hellström-Bängs and Alexander Woentin who will all be eligible for the U21 World Championships.

We do not have long left to find out!

In 2018, Andreas Lyager finished 5th in U21 World Championship, the top places rider in his year group.

But 2019 was the year the Dane stepped out of the shadows of being a junior and took his rightful place as rider on the international circuit.

In Poland that meant a move away from the Ekstraliga with Czestochowa and into Nice 2, where he raced with Polania Pila. The 22-year-old Dane aced his first season coming in third place over all with a heat average of 2.245 behind David Bellego and Brady Kurtz.

Understandably this was his highlight of his season and he has been rewarded with contract in Nice 1 in 2020 with Bydgoszcz. He scored a maximum at their track in an invitation match in October.

But this was not just his first season in Nice 2, but also his first season in Sweden’s Elitserien. There he raced at Vetlanda Speedway, the same team as World Champion, Bartosz Zmarzlik.

He picked a 0.900 Heat Average and he was positive about his first year, “it’s was a very decent year for me in Sweden. I actually had one really good meeting up there, but it was something new for me,” and he will have a further chance to develop at Vetlanda in 2020.

He actually had a much better season in his native Denmark, where he raced as a B rider for Slangerup Speedway Klub. They were favourites to win the Metal League at home in the Superfinal. But the club surprised everyone by coming last, though Lyager was their top scorer with 8 points.

Despite a great season, he’s got ambitious plans for 2020, “I’m looking for a top 10 placing in the Polish league, have a stabile season in Sweden with an average per meeting of 8 points and I want to qualify for the SEC”.

Lyager got his first taste of the SEC when he came in at Vojens as a wildcard in 2019. And he didn’t miss up on the opportunity scoring 7 points, include two heat victories against tough opposition. In Heat 11 he beat countrymen Peter Kildemand and Frederik Jakobsen, and in Heat 18 he beat Poles, Jaroslaw Hampel and Pawel Przedpelski.

The Dane has a simple motto for 2020, “Next year, I’m smarter and faster”. And looking at his year-on-year progress you’ve got every reason to believe him.

Sweden is experiencing one of the warmest winter's on record, but this weekend has been one of the first that has seen ice speedway on both Saturday and Sunday in the country, despite + temperatures.

The weekend has also seen the top Swedish riders taking part in the World Championships in Shadrinsk, Russia. But that has given the opportunity to other riders to shine here in Sweden.

Saturday 15 February, Ice Speedway Cup 2020, Örnsköldsvik

The most northerly based club in Sweden had the advantage of having snowfall before the competition started even if the temperature hovered around 0 degrees at Kallehov.

This cup is an individual competition, not unlike the SGP series, with 16 riders taking part in 20 heats and then a final between the top four riders based on points accumulated during the meeting.

Whilst there was a lot of good racing, this meeting will probably be remembered most for Heat 1 where ÖMK Rundbana's Jimmy Hörnell Lidfalk (SWE) literally flew out of the stadium when he attacked the final corner too hard (see video below). Luckily, he was uninjured and returned to the competition where he collected 8 points in total.

After four heats each, the clear leaders were ÖMK Rundbana's Rene Stellingwerf (NED) and Bockarna's Luca Bauer (GER) who both had collected a maximum 12 points at that stage. That made Heat 18 where they met for the first time extra intresting. The heat also contained SMK Gävle's Albin Lindbolm (SWE) who along with Bockarna's Atte Suolammi (FIN) were in equal third having only dropped two points after four races.

Heat 18 saw Stellingwerf take first, Lindbolm second and Bauer third and it would be these three plus Sualammi who would go ahead to contest the final.

The final saw Lindbolm take the lead, but the Dutchman, who had not lost a single heat so far, would not be outdone. He passed the Sweden to take first place whilst in third it was the Finnish rider with Bauer coming in fourth.

Sunday 16 February, Team competition, Round 2, in Bollnäs

Despite the temperature rising to a un-winterly +8 degrees the competition went ahead with ground-staff working hard to keep the surface from turning into a swimming pool.

But despite tricky conditions for riders and staff alike, the afternoon provided high entertainment with the result only being confirmed in the very last heat.

ÖMK Rundbana have dominated the season so far, but without Martin Haarahiltunen, Niclas and Stefan Svensson they were vulnerable and finished in surprising third place with just 28 points.

Instead the meeting turned into a head-to-head battle between hosts, Bockarna and SMK Gävle.

Albin Lindbolm (SWE) continued a successful weekend by scored a maximum 12 points for Gävle. After his second outing in Heat 8 the club were in the lead by five with a team total 20 points.

But wins in Heat 10 and 11 by the home team's Finnish pairing of Atte Suolammi and Mikko Jetsonen brought them within one point of Gävle and plenty of racing left to catch their rivals.

But try as they might, Bockarna could not overtake Gävle, as Lindbolm kept up his winning ways alongside international teammates, Markus Gell (GER) and Jirka Wildt (CZE).

SMK had led the meet from the very first heat but started Heat 20 with just a one point lead.

And in the last race of the day Bockarna's captain, Pierre Hallen (SWE) started best and held on to pick up maximum 3 points whilst Gävle's Wildt would finish in third.

That meant SMK Gävle finished with 38 points, but home team Bockarna triumphed by the smallest of margins, winning with 39 points.

This weekend saw the 5th and 6th Round of the FIM Ice Speedway Gladiators World Championship take place in Shadrinsk, Russia.

A complete packed stadium saw some competitive racing, and whilst current world champion, Danii Ivanov (RUS) still leads the overall competition, his lead has been reduced as he failed to win either day's final, first by being eliminated in the semi-final on Saturday and on Sunday crashing out and therefore coming last in the final.

Instead it was Dmitry Khomitsevich (RUS) who took the Gold in Round 5 and a Bronze in Round 6 whilst Igor Kononov (RUS) who took first place in Round 6. Dinar Valeev (RUS) who took two Silvers and Dmitry Koltakov (RUS) who took the Bronze on Saturday.

It means that in the overall classification the top three are separated by just nine points, with Ivanov (104 pts), Khomitsevich (100 pts) and Valeev (95 pts) making it a Russians 1-2-3 at the moment.

The top three westerners are also tightly bunched together in 6th to 8th in the overall table separated by only 5 points, with Harald Simon (AUT) leading Johan Weber (GER) and Martin Haarahiltunen (SWE).

Simon owes that lead to a great start in Round 1 in Almaty but found the going tough this weekend in Shadrinsk.

However, German Weber had an outstanding weekend, especially on Saturday where he overtook the world champion, Ivanov in the semi to take a final place in impressive style. That made him the only westerner to have had two finals so far this year. On Sunday his enthusiasm cost him another final place he overcooked it and crashed out of the semi.

Haarahiltunen had a mixed weekend. On Saturday he was not is usual self and the frustration and disbelief could be seen when in his last heat of the day he was overtaken on the line, not by one, but two riders, turning a guaranteed 2 points into 0 in the blink of an eye. The Swede lay back on his bike in sheer disbelief on a day when he collected only 5 points which made him last of the Swedish contingent.

On Sunday however, he was back to his usual tricks and was able to fight his was up into his fourth semi-final of this year's series.

The Ice Gladiators tournament will take a rest for a month now, but will return on 13 and 14 March with the first races of the year in Germany.

(Photo is Dmitry Khomitsevich from the World Championships in Sweden in 2013).

Modern speedway is not just about riders and bikes, but like all modern sports, is also about optimising your physical capacities through physical training.

An important aspect for speedway riders is, of course, recovery from injury and looking after yourself during a punishing season that can often see riders racing in three different countries every week.

Thanks to Michal Lewandowski at Polish speedway site Zuzelend, we can catch up with Michal Kliby who runs the MK MED clinic, one of the most popular physiotherapy clinics for sportsmen and women.

Speedway riders also use the services, having been personally convince of the effectiveness of the treatments offered at in this facility. The results were so satisfying that some of them decided to take advantage of the MK MED partnership offer for 2020. That means Josh Pickering (Edinburgh Monarchs), Andrej Karpov (Piraterna), Wiktor Lampart (Lublin), Mikkel Michelsen (Indianerna) and Antonio Lindbäck (Masarna) will race under the banner of MK MED this season.

The MK MED clinic helps with proper rehabilitation of the body in the season, when the riders are in action every 2-3 days. In the event of injury, competitors will also be able to count on health care. Speedway riders will have also equipment at their disposal to improve performance and also affect reflexes.

“I am very happy that the riders trust me. Wiktor Lampart will be working with me for the third year in a row. Each of them is at a different stage of their sports career. Therefore, I approach each one individually, so that training and rehabilitation give the best effect. I would like to emphasize that the riders at the MK MED clinic can also take advantage of various exercises that allow them to maintain or achieve full fitness in the event of injury - including exercises for reflexes,” says Michał Kliba, owner of MK MED.

For more info on MK MED: http://mkmedrzeszow.manifo.com/

To see Zuzelend's comprehensive coverage: https://www.zuzelend.com/

Russia’s Daniil Ivanov (pictured) still leads the overall FIM Ice Speedway Gladiators World Championship, despite coming second in Final 4 in Togalatti, Russia today.

His win in Final 3 at the same location on Saturday means he has an impressive 78 points after the first two weekends’ racing, with fellow Russia Dmitry Khomitsevich in second with 64 points.

The Russians continued to dominate on home ice with 24 year old Dinar Valeev beating the reigning champion Ivanov to claim victory in Sunday’s Final 4. He sits in third overall with 59 points.

Top westerners over the weekend were Austria’s Harald Simon, Sweden’s Martin Haarahiltunen, and Germany’s Johann Weber given them positions 6-8 respectively in the overall classification.

Haarahiltunen and Weber made it through to the semis on both days, whilst Simon came into the top 8 only on Sunday. Weber was the only European to make it to the final, but was last on Sunday when he crashed out.

That Weber took part at all this weekend is remarkable when you see his crash from last weekend in Almaty. He was taken from the stadium via ambulance after being thrown forward over the handlebars. Amazingly, he escaped with just bruising, which clearly did not affect his form in Togalatti.

Swede Niclas Svensson was not so lucky. On Friday a rumour went out on social media that he had been scratched from the weekend’s races. This was quickly denied by Svensson himself. Then on Saturday morning, Svensson admitted that the doctor had forbidden him from competing due to a fractured ankle. The Swede was obviously disappointed, but it gave first reserve, Lukas Hutla from the Czech Republic a chance to race and he picked up 6 points.

Svensson has promised to be back next week when Rounds 5 and 6 take place in another Russian venue, Shadrinsk.

Martin Smolinski was one of four Germans in the Elitserien in 2019 and raced 12 matches for Avesta Masarna, the same amount as compatriot Kai Hukenbeck for Piraterna. Meanwhile Erik Riss, Rospiggarna and Kevin Wölbert, Lejonen took part in an handful of matches each.

In a season plagued by injury, one of his highlight was beating Riss, Wölbert and Huckenbeck at the German national championships in Abensberg in July. He only dropped one point in the competition and, incredibly, that makes it the seventh time the 35 year old has won the national championship.

2019 marked the first time Smolinksi has raced in Elitserien for 11 years. I asked him about the decision, "I had an good offer with Masarna, it’s a very nice club and I like the people there."

Looking ahead for 2020, he's got plan to improve on his 1.364 average, "I will have a complete bike setup in Sweden with an Swedish mechanic," and he goes on to talk about his ambitions for the Elitserien, "I will step up a lot with my average in Sweden - that’s my goal".

In 2020 he will also continue to race for AC Landshut Devils in the German Bundsliga where he also participated in all four of their regular season matches.

But injuries ruined his year, "to lose the Longtrack World Title with a broken collarbone was a bad finish," he says about the end of his season.

He beat Dmitri Berge to win the title by one point in 2018. But last year, it was the Frenchman who took the title from the German. Not surprisingly, one of Smolinski's main goals for 2020 is to win back the title. However, the two of them will not have wait for the Long Track season to start to meet - they will see each other every week over the summer as they race together for Masarna, in Berge's first ever season in Sweden.

The 35 year old famously won the 2014 Auckland SGP (see video) as the first ever German to win a round in this prestige tournament. Six years later in 2020 he has been chosen as first reserve for the series which means he will only race if someone else cannot make it. "We will see what's happens, in the past years the first reserve always had some chances to show what he can do. We are ready for it," he says.

In that Auckland final he beat Nicki Pedersen, who would wind up collected the bronze medal that year. But in the autumn of 2019 Smolinski got to replace the injured Pedersen at Zielona Gora in their last three matches in their quest for Ekstraliga success.

"It was very bad for me, I tried everything to help Zielona Gora, I was racing through my pain barrier with my back, but I just couldn't bring the power to what I can do." He reflects further on what happened, "It is always hard to come into the final matches with no track experience over the year, " he says, but finishes with a lighter touch, "but that's speedway!"

It is not surprising therefore that one of the German's goals for 2020 is to stay healthy. As regards racing in Poland he has yet to sign for a club, but is hopeful something will turn up, "I don't want to sit on the bench for a year again..." he comments.

At 35 years old the German champion has experience on his side. With a clear focus on the World Longtrack Championship and improving in the Elitserien he knows what he wants from 2020. He also has a number of exciting "maybes" in the pipeline, whether that's the SGP or Ektraliga,. You can be sure, whereever he turns up, Smolinski he will go all out from every heat, and who knows, could there be a second SGP victory for the German in 2020?

Wiktor Lampart will only be turning 19-years-old this May as the speedway season gets under way across Europe.

He’s not such a well-known name outside his native Poland, but that maybe about to change after a great 2019 which saw him race his first full season as a junior in the PGE Ekstraliga, the world’s top speedway league as well as competing in the U21 World and European Championships.

In Poland he raced for SPEEDCAR MOTOR Lublin with Grigorij Laguta, Mikkel Michelson, Robert Lambert, Andreas Jonsson and older brother Dawid Lampart for teammates. Not only that, but he came away with an average of 1.544 – which was better than both Antonio Lindbäck and teammate Lambert, who both raced in the SGP series in 2019.

“It is difficult in the Ekstraliga,” he says, “I spent a lot of my money preparing the bikes and engines, on workouts and psychology training,” revealing how much it takes to compete at the top level. “But racing against the best is amazing and a lot of fun for me,” he says, content with his day job.

At the moment his plans for 2020 are to continue at Lublin and take every opportunity he gets at national and international level to better himself, “I want to increase my Ekstraliga average per heat and get on the podium at the Junior World Championship,” as well as the Polish championships, he said, “and I hope come to Sweden.”

Lampart finished 9th in the U21 World Championship and was the fourth best Pole in the competition behind the medal winning trio of Maksym Drabik, Bartosz Smektala and Dominic Kubera (in yellow helmet, above). Together with these three riders he also won the U21 World Championship team competition in Manchester.

Back to the individual U21 World Championship, in 2020 five of the riders above him will not be eligible, including Drabik and Smektala, so Lampart has a good chance of medalling this year - and in 2021 too.

But there was no doubt about his own personal highlight for 2019, “the U21 European championship in Rivne, because there was the additional heat and there was fight to the last”.

Lampart was crowned European champion in a nail-biting finale in Ukraine in August. The 18-year-old needed two points in his last heat, number 19, to win, but came in third, whilst Russian rival, Roman Lachbaum came in first. With both riders’ level on 12 points, that forced a head-to-head final extra race, which the Polish rider won.

With age on his side, watch out for Lampart - a name which you be certainly hearing a lot more of in the years to come.

The reigning FIM Ice Speedway Gladiators World Champion, Daniil Ivanov (above) had a near perfect start to his 2020 campaign this weekend in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The Russian won the Finals on both Saturday and Sunday and lost only one heat out of fourteen in an impressive display over the two days. Compatriot and 2016 World Champion, Dmitry Khomitsevich, came second losing just four heats during the weekend.

The best European on both days was Austrian Harald Simon, the only non-Russian to get to a Final where he finished in third on Saturday behind Ivanov and Khomitsevich.

That gave him 27 points in total after two days racing placing him in fifth behind the Russian pairing of Dmitry Koltakov and Igor Kononov, both with 28 points.

The points system differs from the SGP series in "normal" speedway. The riders are ranked at the end of each day by the points collected from 1st to 10th. But instead of taking these points forward to a grand total, as in regular speedway, they are awarded points based on their position - 20 pts for first; 18 pts for second; 16 pts for third and so on down to 0 pts for tenth. Therefore, Ivanov comes away with 40 points (2 x 20 pts). That differs from a near perfect 41 from a maximum 42 points he collected in his actual heats. In practice this should keep the competition more even over the whole series.

The Swedes came away with mixed results. On day 1 Martin Haarahiltunen was on fire with three wins and two second places. But on Sunday he faded, whilst Niclas and Stefan Svensson took up fight against the Russians. The ÖMK Rundbana trio are now glued together in joint 7th place on 17 points, the best placed Europeans behind Simon.

However, for German rider, Johan Weber, the weekend finished early when he taken to hospital after a high speed crash in Heat 13 on Sunday. It remains to be seen what impact that will have on the rest of his season.

The Ice Speedway Gladiators series moves to Togliatti, Russia next weekend for another Saturday-Sunday double header. Sweden's Haarahiltunen will be hoping for a repeat of last week's results at the venue where he won in the Stepanov Memorial pairs race with Russia's Dmitry Koltakov.

Weather permitting, there will also be also Ice Speedway in Gävle, Sweden too, with Round 4 of the team competition. However, the prognosis is for + 4 degrees making poor surface conditions for racing.

Danish rider Nikolaj Busk Jakobsen may be based in his home country, but has spent a lot of his career travelling around Europe to live out his speedway dream.

Since 2015 that has included significant time in the UK, in both the top division, The Premiership and the tier below, The Championship. Whilst he has raced in the past in Poland, 2019 took him to the Bundesliga in Germany, but for just one race in a season that saw the soon 26-year-old race nearly 50 matches for five clubs in three different countries!

On reflection, he is not sure it was such a good idea, “Dealing with a lot of clubs and never resting up was hard. That made me mentally exhausted and even though I had a few days off, my thoughts were still on speedway,” he says about his hectic schedule.

So, in 2020 he’s got a different plan, “I’m going to focus on the clubs that I’m riding for now and hopefully good results there”.

That means racing for a third year for Grinsted team, GKS Liga in the Metal League in Denmark and continuing with Berwick Bandits in the Championship.

Not that last year was all bad news, he scored his highest ever heat average in the Championship with 1.776, “I think adding one point to my average for Berwick was pretty good and shows some progress,” he said, reflecting on 2019.

Just as in Sweden’s top two divisions (the Elitserien and Allsvenskan), many riders in the United Kingdom also race in both tiers of the sport over one season. Perhaps the difference between the two is that in Sweden the second division is almost an all Swedish affair, where as in the UK, the Championship contains many international riders, like Busk Jakobsen himself.

But in 2019 the Dane actually raced more matches in the Premiership with Poole Pirates and Belle Vue Aces than with the Bandits. When I asked him what the difference between the two leagues was, he said it was more mental than anything else, “and you have better heat leaders”, he added.

That can be seen when you look at the quality of the Australian teammates’ he had at those two clubs; at the Pirates it was Jack Holder and Brady Kurtz; whilst at the Aces it was Australia’s Speedway of Nations bronze medal duo, Max Fricke and Jaimon Lidsey. If fact, Lidsey and Busk Jakobsen were teammates at GKS Liga in Denmark too.

But despite considerable experience in the UK, he still thinks he has got a head start when it comes to the Metal League. “You can’t compare the tracks in England and Denmark, they’re so different. But I’ve grown up racing the Danish circuit, so I’ve got better knowledge setup wise”.

That said, he’s got modest personal goals for the coming year - build up his averages one race at a time.

As regards his teams, Berwick Bandits will want to part of the postseason in 2020, have narrowly missed out on the playoffs two years in a row. Meanwhile, GKS Liga will be definitely looking to improve on last year’s bottom of the table fiasco where they did not win a single match all season.

The young Dane rarely scores below 1.500 over a year, so expect Busk Jakobsen to be fired up come race time. He will be out to pursue his personal goals, but do not underestimate the crucial role he will play in enabling his team’s success in 2020.