Speedway of Nations 2022: Poland, Finland and Australia into final after thrilling night in Vojens

Updated 27/07/2022 at 20:33 GMT

Despite coming in as pre-race favourites, Poland looked far from their best on the night and needed a playoff against Germany to finally progress to the Speedway of Nations final in Vojens, Denmark. Australia were the top team on the night and surprise package Finland took second place. Stream the 2022 Speedway of Nations live and ad-free on discovery+

'When the chips were down they came up trumps' - Poland into Speedway of Nations final

Finland, Australia and Poland will be joining hosts Denmark in Saturday evening's Speedway of Nations Final.

Finland gave it their all on the night and was able to claim one of the automatic spots, but the night belonged to Australia.

The trio of Jack Holder, Max Fricke and Jason Doyle didn’t have the strongest of starts but they battled towards the end of the heats to claim the most points on the night with 35 points and topping the first semi-final standings.

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Finland wasn’t too far behind with 34 points. Timo Lahti and Timi Salonen left everything out on track, and it was highly rewarding for the underdogs.

The biggest surprise of the evening was Poland not finishing in the top two to qualify automatically, forcing to have one final battle with Germany. However, when it counted, Poland brought their A game to become the third team through on the night.

The group of Bartosz Zmarzlik, Patryk Dudek and Maciej Janowski will want to forget what happened tonight, but they have their ticket to Saturday and will still be one of the favourites to win.

Germany’s Kai Huckenbeck was one of the standout stars of the night, winning his first three heats and giving Germany that little glimmer of hope.

USA’s Luke Becker was the top scorer on the night with 21 points. However, that couldn’t get his USA team in the top four.

Ukraine and Latvia completed the standings in sixth and seventh respectively. Ukraine can hold their heads high, especially after a stellar performance from Marko Levishyn, who spent most of his night battling for wins.

Tomorrow evening sees the second semi-final with France, Sweden, Norway, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Italy and Great Britain battling it out for the final three spots.