KOLODZIEJ STILL DREAMS OF SPEEDWAY GP COMEBACK

Polish international Janusz Kolodziej insists he still has an FIM Speedway Grand Prix comeback in his sights.

The 39-year-old remains one of the top riders in Poland’s PGE Ekstraliga, with the Leszno star finishing an impressive third in the average charts in the world’s top speedway league for the past two seasons, registering 2.427 points per race in 2022 and 2.333 in 2023.

Kolodziej has not always transferred these fine performances on to the Speedway GP stage. 

Despite reaching two finals as a wild card in the 2010 series, finishing fourth in Leszno and third in Bydgoszcz, he struggled to 14th place in the 2011 series as a full-time SGP rider.

The Tarnow-born man returned to the series for 2019 and ended his wait for a win at the FIM Czech Speedway GP in Prague. But he repeated his 14th-place finish overall after reaching just one other final in Wroclaw, where he was fourth.

There is no doubt that Kolodziej’s domestic form places him among the best riders in the world and he’s a regular member of the Polish national team, with whom he has won three FIM Speedway World Cup gold medals in 2010, 2011 and last year in Wroclaw.

Speaking at their training camp in Malta, Kolodziej told the Polish team’s official media that he still has Speedway GP ambitions. He said: “If I didn't want to race there, I wouldn't ride speedway. Everyone wants to ride with the best. Just because I'm an older competitor doesn't mean I don't want to race with the world's best. 

“We see each other in other competitions, and we can compete. It is known that I have got into this series a couple of times and not everything turned out well, but I have the impression that it is getting better over time. 

“I managed to win the Grand Prix in Prague and that's probably a good sign that anything can happen. For me, individual successes are a way of showing me that it is worth believing in myself and that I can achieve good results, but I need to combine them at the right time. I will try and see what will come of it.”