World Cup: Poland off to a flier.

The first ever staging of the Speedway World team Cup got off to a wet start in Poland on Sunday evening.

Heavy and torrential rain forced a delay of a few hours before racing could get underway, and when it did home team Poland emerged as runaway winners of this first 'event' and now progress straight to the final on Saturday.

Gollob, Protasiewicz, Kowalik and Cigielski were largely dominant winning sixteen of the twenty-four races between them and dropping just five points. Remarkable. The only Pole to miss out was Miroslaw Kowiak but he still managed seven as he and his team mates racked up a huge 62 points.

The injury hit team Great Britain trailed home in second place with 49 points and now get a second bite at qualification for the final if they perform well enough in the 'last chance' event on Thursday night.

G.B. started brightly with Mark Loram and Carl Stonehewer winning heats one and two but then the Poles took over. Loram and Lee Richardson took the fight to the Poles with reasonable support from Stonehewer and Gary Havelock but poor Paul Hurry was never at the races.

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that Sean Wilson could find himself on a plane to Wroclaw in time for Thursday night's Last Chance event.

Finland and Germany made up the numbers and were outclassed. Not a single heat winner for either side with the best they could manage a handful of second places mostly at each others expense.

The Finns have a chance of another go as a highest scoring losing team as (arguably) do the Germans but that must be a remote.

Poland - 62
Thomasz Gollob 14
Sebastian Umalek 14
Krzysztof Cigielski 14
Piotr Protasiewicz 13
Miroslaw Kowiak 7

Team Great Britain - 49
Mark Loram 17
Lee Richardson 13
Gary Havelock 10
Carl Stonehewer 9
Paul Hurry 0

Finland - 22
Kaj Kaukkanen 8
Joonas Kylmakorpi 7
Kauko Miemenen 5
Tomi Reima 1
Petri Kokko 1

Germany - 15
Joachim Kugelmann 10
Herbert Rudolph 3
Gerd Riss 1
Jorg Pingel 1
Steffen Mell 0