Around the World in 80 slides: Part 1 - Argentina

In the first of my intended series of reports on how Speedway affects our friends around the World, TSR reader, and self-confessed Speedway nut, Facku Müller (pictured right) kindly took time out to speak with us to contribute his synopsis of how Argentina is leading the promotion of the shale sport in South America...

Speedway in Argentina is improving every year. For the 2008/09 season, and after much hard work and persuasion, organisers of the Argentinian Winter Championship substantially improved their sporting product through the addition of a number of recognised foreign talents of diverse background, such as our very own Lee Complin (pictured left); former Canadian Champ, Kyle Legault (pictured right); and Italian SWC riders Mattia Carpanese, Guglielmo Franchetti, and Italian/Argentine Emiliano Sanchez.

Through securing this foreign interest in the National Championship, naturally, this in turn has helped to improve the Country's own Speedway heroes, such as Nicolas Covatti, Matias Lopez, Giulio Romano, and Lucas Allende.

The 2009/10 Championship was boosted by the addition of Workington Comets' Czech rider, Adrian Rymel (pictured left), his fellow countryman (and certainly one to watch in future) Hynek Stichauer (pictured right), and the return of the likes of Franchetti and Sanchez.

This time around however, the organisers also moved to modify the format of the Championship, ditching the mini-series (comprising just semi-finals and finals), in favour of the Internationally recognised system, comprising 16-20 races, semi-finals, and finals.

Facku believes that this move to bring the competition more in line with the SGP, resulted in producing the best Argentinian series in many years, with a generous increase in participants (over forty), spectacular racing of a good general standard, better equipment for Argentine riders, and hugely increased publicity (including live television coverage).

Lisandro Husman

The Championship was led (almost from first to last race) by Adrian Rymel, but notably, he was valiantly challenged in most rounds, by Argentine rider Lisandro Husman (pictured left - with Facku). In fact, this improvement in the Championship has no doubt led to the inclusion of 3 Argentine riders (Lisandro Husman, Lucas Allende and dual-national, Emiliano Sanchez) in the line-up for the 2011 Speedway Grand Prix Qualifying Round 2, due to take place on 12th June in Terenzano, Italy.

Lucas Allende

Facku is also quick to point out (ed - very kindly!) that British Speedway is well supported in Argentina, and is actually considered "one of the most beautiful leagues in the world".

In reciprocation, TSR Blog would like to express its gratitude to Facku for providing an interesting insight into the rise of Speedway across Argentina, and we suggest all our readers keep an eye on the GP qualifying results this June; for whilst Lisandro, Lucas and Emiliano may not be amongst the favourites to make the Grand Prix Challenge, their efforts are blazing a trail for their counterparts back in Argentina to follow, and we hope the effects will spread across the whole of South America.