The Poland national speedway team is the national

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four clockwise, anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that ...

team of Poland and is controlled by the Polish Motor Union ( PZM). They are one of the most successful speedway nations of all time.

History

The Polish speedway team participated in the inaugural

Speedway World Team Cup The Speedway World Team Cup was an annual motorcycle speedway, speedway event held each year in different countries. The competition started in 1960 and was replaced with the Speedway World Cup in 2001. Format From 1960 until 1985, each team c ...

, being seeded through to the final of the 1960 Speedway World Team Cup. The team were a major force in the opening decade of the tournament, winning the World Team Cup in

1961 Events January * January 1 – Monetary reform in the Soviet Union, 1961, Monetary reform in the Soviet Union. * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and cons ...

1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lynd ...

1966 Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...

and

1969 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 969th year of the 2nd millennium, the 69th year of the 20th century, and the ...

, with only the Swedish team winning more World Cups. In the 1970s, the team continued to be one of the major forces in Eastern Europe and qualified for the World Team Cup final every year from 1970 to 1979.

Andrzej Wyglenda Andrzej Wyglenda (born 4 May 1941 in Rybnik, Poland) is a former motorcycle speedway rider from Poland. Career Wyglenda has won 1971 Speedway World Pairs Championship and Speedway World Team Cup three times. He was won Polish Individual Speedw ...

and Jerzy Szczakiel also won the 1971 Speedway World Pairs Championship. However, during the 1980s the team began to struggle against the best nations and only managed two finals in 1980 and 1984. It was not until the mid-1990s and the arrival of

Tomasz Gollob Tomasz Robert Gollob (; born 11 April 1971 in Bydgoszcz, Poland) is a former Polish motorcycle speedway rider. He appeared in every Speedway Grand Prix series between its inaugural season in 1995 and 2013. He earned 52 caps for the Poland nati ...

that Poland began to challenge the best nations. The team won the silver medal at the 1994 Speedway World Team Cup (their first final for 10 years). They then won the World Team Cup for the sixth time in 1996 (27 years after their last win). In 2001, the Speedway World Team Cup was rebranded the

Speedway World Cup The Speedway World Cup is a motorcycle speedway event for national teams held in different countries. The first edition of the competition in the current format was held in 2001 and replaced the old Speedway World Team Cup, World Team Cup which ...

and Poland began to experience a boom in terms of spectator numbers, which led to an influx of new riders. The team reached the World Cup final every year from 2001 to 2017 (except for 2006 and 2012) and dominated world speedway by winning the title eight times, in

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

and

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

. Poland's speedway team was awarded the Team of the Year in Poland by ''

Przegląd Sportowy ''Przegląd Sportowy'' (, ''Sports Review'') is the oldest and now the only Polish sports daily, founded in 1921 in Kraków. In 1926 it initiated an annual, popular plebiscite for the Polish Sportspersonality of the Year. Its current editor-in-ch ...

'' in 2009 and 2010. Although the team failed to win the Speedway of Nations from 2018 to 2022, they did win the World Cup when it returned in 2023. The World Cup win was their 14th World Team Championship (one behind Denmark in the all time standings).

Major world titles

World Team Cup

World Pairs Championship

International caps (as of 2022)

Since the advent of the

Speedway Grand Prix Speedway Grand Prix are a series of stand-alone motorcycle speedway events over the course of a season used to determine the Speedway World Champion. The series started in 1995 replacing the previous format of a single event final. The first ...

era, international caps earned by riders is largely restricted to international competitions, whereas previously test matches between two teams were a regular occurrence. This means that the number of caps earned by a rider has decreased in the modern era.

References

{{Awards of Plebiscite of Przegląd Sportowy National speedway teams

Speedway Speedway may refer to: Racing Race tracks *Daytona International Speedway, a race track in Daytona Beach, Florida. *Edmonton International Speedway, also known as Speedway Park, a former motor raceway in Edmonton, Alberta. *Indianapolis Motor Spe ...