The Slovenia national speedway team are one of the teams that compete in international team

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 ...

History

As Yugoslavia

The Yugoslavian speedway team (which featured riders from Slovenia) first competed in the

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 ...

during the

1962 Speedway World Team Cup 1962 Speedway World Team Cup was the third edition of the FIM Speedway World Team Cup to determine the team world champions. The final took place in Slaný, Czechoslovakia. The World Champion title was won by Sweden (36 pts) who beat Great B ...

, finishing second in the central European round. Throughout the history of World Team Cup, the team were regular World Cup competitors from 1962 until their final World Cup in 1992. However, they were one of the weaker nations and failed to reach the latter stages of the competition. Following the

breakup of Yugoslavia After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, the constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart in the early 1990s. Unresolved issues from the breakup caused a series of inter-ethnic Yugoslav ...

, the riders then competed for their new speedway nations, primarily

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

and Slovenia.

As Slovenia

The Slovenian speedway team first competed in the World Team Cup at the

1994 Speedway World Team Cup The 1994 Speedway World Team Cup was the 35th edition of the FIM Speedway World Team Cup to determine the team world champions. The format changed after the World Team Cup merged with the Speedway World Pairs Championship. Teams now consisted ...

, winning Group C (the third tier of the World Cup). In 1997, they gained promotion to Group A and just missed out on their first World final. Since 2001, Slovenia have performed well in the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

and the

Speedway of Nations The Speedway of Nations is a motorcycle speedway event for national teams, held each year in a different country. The first edition of the competition in the current format took place in 2018. It was the first time an official FIM international ...

(introduced in 2018) but have yet to qualify for their first final. Their best international result to date has been winning two medals at the

European Pairs Speedway Championship The European Pairs Speedway Championship is an annual speedway event held in different countries organized by the European Motorcycle Union (UEM) since 2004. Previous winners Classification Participating nations ;Legend * – Champions. ...

(a bronze in 2005 and a silver in 2006), the medallists were

Matej Žagar Matej Žagar (born 3 April 1983 in Ljubljana, Slovenia) is a Slovenian motorcycle speedway rider who was won two Individual Speedway European Champion titles in 2008 Individual Speedway European Championship, 2008 and 2009 Individual Speedway E ...

Izak Šantej Izak Šantej (born August 26, 1973 in Slovenia) is a Slovenian motorcycle speedway rider who rode in the Speedway Grand Prix series. He is a ten times silver medal winner at Slovenian championship. Career Šantej medalled 12 times at the Slove ...

and

Jernej Kolenko Jernej Kolenko (born November 30 1982) is a former Slovenian motorcycle speedway rider who rode in Speedway World Cup. Career Kolenko medalled six times at the Slovenian Individual Speedway Championship. Although he won 2 silver medals and 4 ...

respectively.

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

* Świat Żużla, No 1 (75) /2008, page 24, .

History

As Yugoslavia

As Slovenia

International caps (as of 2022)

References

See also