Nicki Pedersen
Three times world champion, Nicki Pedersen, above, may be 42 years old but still had a season few riders can dream of scoring over 2.0 P/H in all the leagues he performed in. Arguably his broken hand towards the end of the season not only prevented him from medalling in the European Championship (SEC), but also hindered Zielona Gora (Ekstraliga), Västervik (Elitserien) from going further than the semifinals in their respective nations.
And whilst the triple world champion's team, Holsted Tigers, easily won the regular season matches, he was not able to race in the four team Metal League final. Amazingly the busy Dane even found time for a couple of matches in the German Bundesliga where he again managed an average of greater than 2.00.
In 2020 he will be racing for Rospiggarna in Sweden and you know wherever ever he goes he will only be riding with one thing in mind - to win.
Leon Madsen
But the Dane who perhaps should be considered as the nation's top rider for 2019 must be Leon Madsen. At 31 and with a young child he took the decision to reduce his league commitments to just riding for Chestochowa in the Ekstraliga and concentrate on his international commitments in the SEC and SGP series.
It paid off.
Madsen topped the Ekstraliga with an enormous 2.433 P/H in the toughest league in the world. He ran Zmarzlik close to pick up the Silver medal in the SGP series winning three rounds on the competition and overtook, Emil Sayfutdinov in the last round in Torun to gain second place. Not to forget that he also came third in the SEC, a competition he would surely have won had he not missing one of the rounds through injury.
He really could hardly have done more right and is perhaps Denmark's most likely candidate to take over from Pedersen as their next world champion.
Mikkel Michelsen
However, a word must also go out to Mikkel Michelsen, who won the SEC this year with a great performance in the last Round in Chorzow. He had by far his best ever season in the Ekstraliga with Lublin where he scored over 2.0 P/H and was the second best rider in the team just 0.109 points behind Grigorji Laguta, the Russian who took second place behind the Dane in the SEC competition.
In Sweden the 25 year old also had his best ever season riding with fellow Dane, Niels Kristian Iversen, at Motala Piraterna. He was the top scoring rider from Denmark in the Elitserien with a 2.141 P/H average. That made him the fifth placed rider in the league in 2019. But he will be riding with Indianerna in 2020 whilst Iversen has gone to Smederna.
Michelsen also got to ride in both the Scandinavian SGP in Målilla as well as the SGP in his home country where he also represented Slangerup SK who hosted the Metal League final only to be beat by underdogs Team Fjelsted in a four-way team race.
Speedway of Nations and other Danish victories
2019 was a great year for Danish speedway and the country may well be disappointed that they only came fourth in the Speedway of Nations competition in Togalitti, Russia. Madsen led the way with Iversen as their second rider, whilst their U21 representative was Fredrik Jakobsen. The junior rider was part of the winning team in Danish Metal League along with Anders Thomsen (Gorzow/ Indianerna), gained a silver medal in Sweden with Dackarna and got to race in the SEC in Vojens.
Not only that but Rasmus Jensen played a pivotal role in Swindon Robins' win in the Premiership.
So don't be surprised if 2020 sees more Danes taking podiums spots in the national and international competitions.
