World Team Cup Speedway Motorcycle Final : Ole’s Great Danes Try for a Third Straight Title

It’s a rather unlikely scenario that unfolds every year in Denmark.

While hundreds of young boys eagerly await their turns for team tryouts, mom is adjusting her son’s racing leathers, and dad is doing some last-minute tweaking on an 80cc motorcycle. These boys are trying out for speedway motorcycle racing teams.

Denmark, a nation of only five million people, supports 36 amateur speedway teams with more than 1,000 riders in four divisions. No other nation can boast of so many participants, and many of them begin riding as 12-year-olds on 80cc junior speedway bikes.

The boom in speedway can be traced directly to 1971 when Ole Olsen won his first of three world championships. Speedway mania hit Denmark, and Olsen soon became the toast of a nation that could count its world champions on one hand.

Olsen was named the country’s sportsman of the year on three occasions before retiring in 1983. But Olsen’s influence and popularity has never died. Today, at 39, he is the team manager of Denmark’s national team, considered the strongest in the world.

They’re commonly referred to as the great Danes in the world of speedway, and Denmark has dominated the sport that is popular throughout Europe for the last three years. Erik Gundersen is the world champion and countryman Hans Nielsen is the runner-up.

The Danes, with Olsen overseeing every move, have won the World Team Cup the last two years, sweeping past the United States and England. Denmark will be going for its third straight title tonight in the 26th World Team Cup final at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach.

It wasn’t always that way. Olsen can remember when there were only six licensed speedway riders in Denmark when he left the country in 1967 to ride for Manchester in the British Speedway League.

“The sport was totally mixed up back then,” Olsen said. “A promoter would put on a speedway show, but you’d have sidecars, TT racing and flat track races, too. There just wasn’t much interest in speedway in Denmark at that time.”

Olsen changed all that by winning his first world title in 1971. Overnight, he became a hero in a country that was hungry for a sports champion. He had worked for four years in England to become a world champion, and he decided the time was right to popularize the sport in Denmark.

Olsen began a series of speedway training schools that emphasized safety and equipment maintenance. He taught hundreds of youngsters the basic riding skills and then formed a junior speedway program for boys 12-16.

The idea was to get the kids interested in motorcycles. He decided to keep costs at a minimum by having the boys ride 50cc bikes that are comparable to mopeds. The bikes have since been increased to 80cc.

Among the top riders in the junior program this season was Olsen’s 12-year-old son, Jacob, who finished second in the nation in his age group.

Gundersen and Nielsen both began their careers in the Danish junior program. Both say an early start was instrumental in their successful careers.

“I started riding when I was 12 years old, and I wished I could have ridden when I was 8,” Gundersen said. “I learned the game riding junior speedway. I learned how to race, but I also learned to respect the sport.

“The program is really competitive. There are a lot of good, young riders in Denmark and most of them have come up through the junior program.”

Nielsen said he decided he wanted to race speedway after watching Olsen win the world title in 1971 on television. He started riding as a 13-year-old.

“Ole was my first sports hero,” Nielsen said. “Everybody in my school wanted to be Ole Olsen. Everybody wanted to be a world champion racer.

“I had to rely on my parents to get started in speedway. The cost of a competitive bike was around $2,000 and I didn’t have that kind of money. I would say that most of the parents in Denmark accept speedway and encourage their boys to ride if they wish. Ole had a lot to do with that attitude.”

Olsen built the foundation for future speedway riders and then built his own speedway track at Vojens in 1975. The track, considered one of the top facilities in the world, has a seating capacity of 25,000 and sellouts for international events are common.

“Ole’s track at Vojens is one of the top five tracks I rode at,” said Bruce Penhall, a two-time world champion. “Ole was a rider, and he does the little things for a rider like attaching a program in your pit area with all of your heats marked.

“The fans are great at Vojens. They’re very knowledgeable and always treated me very well. In fact, they treat all the American riders well.”

Penhall, who retired in 1982 to pursue an acting career, said there’s no secret to the Danes’ success in speedway. He gives the credit to Olsen.

“I think Denmark’s rise as a speedway power can be directly related to Ole Olsen,” Penhall said. “I think he was one of the first world champions in anything over there. He opened the eyes of the Danish public and showed them what a great sport speedway is.”

But why speedway?

“The life style is a lot different in Denmark,” Penhall said. “The kids don’t have football, baseball, bicycle motocross, skateboarding, surfing and all the other things the kids have here.”

Consequently, speedway, of all things, has become a national pastime in Denmark. It ranks second to soccer in popularity among the Danes.

Tonight’s race is being broadcast live to Denmark, which means that the country’s die-hard fans will be rising early. The show is scheduled to start at 5 a.m., Danish time. Seven Danish journalists have traveled 5,000 miles to cover the race.

Nielsen said that Denmark’s success in the World Team Cup is a source of pride to the Danish people.

“I was the top scorer in our first Team Cup victory in 1978 in West Germany,” he said. “When we returned home, we were heroes. The Cup means a lot to everyone back home. It’s a small country and everyone knows you. You feel you have to win for all those people.”