The Harry Jordan Leicester Lions are without their Danish teenager Lasse Bjerre for the fixture against the Redcar Bears at home on Saturday.
Bjerre is taking part in a meeting on his home track in Denmark which has been arranged by the Danish Motor Union to determine their country’s qualifiers for the World Under-21 Individual Championship competition which starts next month.
If Bjerre gets through as one of the qualifiers he will face a World Under-21 preliminary fixture next month at one of three venues, Chervonograd (Ukraine), Rawicz (Poland) or Lonigo (Italy). His absence means that the Lions go into Saturday’s meeting with six riders and rider replacement against a Redcar team that won at Berwick in the Knock-out Cup last weekend.
The Lions will be hoping to put their disappointment of going out of two cup competitions behind them and collect all three Premier League points. “As it is an official fixture covered by an agreement between the Danish Motor Union and the British Speedway Promoters Association we have no option but to allow Lasse to miss our match against Redcar. It is not ideal to have a gap in our team and means that all remaining six riders need to be scoring well to cover for Lasse’s absence” explained the Lions Co-promoter Alan Jones.
It will be the first occasion that Kevin Doolan will face his former club since his transfer during the winter to Leicester. The Australian ended the year with the highest match average for the Bears and the visitors have re-signed Ulrich Ostergaard, Aaron Summers, Matej Kus and Carl Wilkinson from the team that finished last season in ninth position. The new faces are Hugh Skidmore from Sheffield who set the first track record when the Leicester stadium opened in April 2011 and the Australian is joined by two fellow countrymen, Mitchell Davey and Micky Dyer.
Teams
Leicester: 1 Kauko Nieminen, 2 Rider Replacement, 3 Kevin Doolan, 4 Jan Graversen, 5 Magnus Karlsson, 6 Simon Nielsen and 7 Lewis Blackbird
Redcar: 1 Ulrich Ostergaard, 2 Hugh Skidmore, 3 Matej Kus, 4 Carl Wilkinson, 5 Aaron Summers, 6 Mitchell Davey and 7 Micky Dyer
