The Leicester Breedon Aggregates Lions have acted quickly following the news that their Australian rider Richard Sweetman is taking a break from the sport by signing the experienced Henning Bager.
Bager, who has not raced in Britain since last season has ridden for a string of clubs including Elite League sides Peterborough, Belle Vue and Lakeside. The former Danish Under-21 international is set to make his debut at home to Edinburgh on Saturday and has been handed the number one race bib and will partner his fellow countryman, Jan Graversen in the opening heat against the Monarchs.
Lions’ promoter David Hemsley said: “After the meeting at Sheffield on Thursday Richard informed me that he wanted to take a break from racing for a while. Therefore I had to act quickly to find a replacement and when I heard that Henning was thinking about returning to race in this country I was immediately interested. Throughout his career he has been a consistent scorer wherever he has ridden and I feel that his presence will potentially improve the team.”
Bager comes into the side to replace Richard Sweetman who made his final appearance in the Lions race jacket at Somerset on Friday night when he partnered Sergey Darkin in the British Premier League Best Pairs competition. The Leicester pairing each won a race but just failed to make the semi-final stage. “We have stood by Richard through what has been a difficult time and given him every opportunity to ride himself out of a poor spell. I do hope that we see Richard return soon as he is a talented rider with a great future in front of him and the sport will be the poorer without him” added Hemsley.
The Lions heat leader began the season with double figure scores and was at the centre of Leicester’s dramatic win in Scotland against Edinburgh in April when along with Sergey Darkin the pair silenced the home fans by winning the last heat which gave the team an unexpected victory against the current league champions.
Hemsley went on to say: “I will continue to assess the team performance over the next few meetings and if further changes are required I will not hesitate to make them. My first priority is for the team to begin to win at home and be competitive on our travels”.
One further change to the riding personnel is the release of Mathieu Trésarrieu from his contract. The four-time French National Individual Champion who has now signed to ride for Ipswich ruled himself out of a return to the Lions team due to a number of Long-track engagements at weekends which clashed with fixtures for Leicester in the British Premier League. Trésarrieu, who made seven appearances for the team built up a big following in his short spell at the club and his all-action style of riding and perseverance was appreciated by Lions fans.
Iliya Bondarenko, who made a successful return to the sport earlier this month after a long spell out injured, was placed third in the Welsh Open Championship at Newport today. The Lions rider qualified for the final after scoring ten points and finished third behind Ryan Fisher and Kevin Doolan.
