IN
THE
WIND
P50
Russia Wins
Speedway Of
Nations
R
ussian hero Emil Sayfutdinov
is reveling in the "amazing
feeling" of leading his country to a
second straight Monster Energy
FIM Speedway of Nations title on
home shale in Togliatti, July 20-21.
Sayfutdinov joined forces with
Artem Laguta and under-21 star
Gleb Chugunov to retain the trophy
they won in Wroclaw last summer,
this time beating Poland with a 5-1
in the grand final to spark euphoric
scenes at the Anatoly Stepanov
Stadium.
"We worked hard," Sayfutdinov
said. "Saturday was a hard meeting,
and Sunday was harder. The track
at the beginning was different from
Saturday. We needed to find some
good speed, but we did a great job,
and I want to say thank you very
much to my team and everyone who
helped me. I feel so great.
"There were a lot of people
there," he added. "It was our
people in Russia, and everyone
was standing up for us. That's an
amazing feeling."
FIM Speedway Grand Prix World
Championship leader Sayfutdinov
scorched to 17 points on Satur-
day and 14 on Sunday. It was not
enough to deny Poland the top
spot on the overall score chart, as
they qualified automatically for the
grand final at 47.
Russia, with 45, was forced to
face third-placed Australia, who
scored 41, in the final qualifier.
Even though Jason Doyle won the
race, second and third for Laguta
and Sayfutdinov was enough to
send them through due to their su-
perior points tally in the heats. They
then out-trapped and defeated
Poland in the grand final.
Last year it was Laguta who
scored 31 of Russia's 45 points,
but after returning the compliment
with 31 of his own this season,
Sayfutdinov says he wasn't con-
cerned who delivered the points for
the team.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "The
whole team was pushing—me and
Artem. It doesn't matter who scores
the most points. We did a great
job."
Poland was forced to settle for
silver, despite topping the scores
over two days and Bartosz Zmarz-
lik dropping just one point over 12
heats.
John Hipkiss
Overall
1. Russia
2. Poland
3. Australia
4. Denmark
5. Sweden
Team Russia took gold at the Monster Energy FIM Speedway
Des Nations held in their home country.
It was a duel to the finish with Team Russia
edging out Team Poland for the win.
