02/10/2023

ALLEN: WOFFY DELIVERED MORE THAN POINTS FOR GB

Joint Great Britain team manager Oliver Allen says Lions skipper Tai Woffinden “brought more to the team than the points” during the Monster Energy FIM Speedway World Cup.Woffinden scored seven at the Final in Wroclaw on July 29, winning his opening two heats, before scoring one point from his final three rides.The Brits were forced to settle for silver as they fell just two points short of their first title over the four-team World Cup format since 1989, with Poland claiming a record ninth victory in the competition.Taking to social media after the Final, Woffinden expressed his frustration with his own performance. But Allen insists the triple Speedway GP world champion’s contribution to the side was huge.He said: “Tai probably didn’t score as many points as he would have wanted to. But if you look at what Tai brings to the team, he brought more points than the ones he scored. “It’s not common knowledge, but he bought an engine from Ash-Tech for Adam Ellis to use – specifically for the World Cup. Can you tell me another captain who has done that?! Things like that are invaluable, and also his experience and calmness around the team. Okay, he dropped more points than he would have wanted to, but he also brought more to the team than the points.”Lambert lined up against Poland’s Maciej Janowski in the all-important heat 20, with the Wroclaw hero slipping past him as he chased race leader Max Fricke going into the final lap to deny GB a run-off for first place and seal the Ove Fundin Trophy.But with the Norfolk ace scoring 25 points – the highest tally of all the Lions stars over their two Monster Energy FIM SWC meetings, Allen insists the world No.5 could have done no more.“Robert really beat himself up after that last race,” he said. “But he did a fantastic job overall. I have watched that last race back numerous times and I don’t know what Robert could have done differently. He was in the unfortunate position where he was quicker than Max at the front and Max was holding him up. But he knew if he tried to overtake him, he would be opening himself up to a move from Magic. It was a really hard task. How many hundreds of thousands of laps of that track has Magic done?“My memory of that final race is almost slow-motion. I remember thinking after two laps, ‘Who am I putting in the run-off against Bartosz Zmarzlik? What a race that’s going to be!’“I thought we were having a run-off and then Magic came from nowhere. I will never forget the Polish fans when Magic went up the inside of Robert. That will live with me for a long time.”The Lions have now finished in the world’s top two for three straight seasons – massive progress after struggling to reach the rostrum consistently for decades. They may have missed out on the gold medal they desired, but Allen believes the Brits have a lot to be positive about.He said: “If you look at the biggest picture of all, we are all involved in speedway because we love it and it was probably one of, if not the best, World Cup Finals there has ever been. You couldn’t ask for more. It went down to three teams going into the last race and it was a brilliant advert for speedway. From that point of view, great.“As far as where Great Britain has come from and where we are now, that’s also really positive. In the last three years, we have had a gold medal and two silvers. We have been the most consistent team over the last few years, so that’s a bonus as well.“The disappointing thing is to lose the way we did. I would say we led for longer than anyone else in that meeting. "It was heartbreaking to lose it, but I am really, really proud of every one of the five boys. As a team and a unit, I think we had the best team atmosphere we have ever had. I have no complaints.”

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