John Tony Olsson (born 13 March 1965 in

Visby Visby () is an urban areas in Sweden, urban area in Sweden and the seat of Gotland Municipality in Gotland County on the island of Gotland with 24,330 inhabitants . Visby is also the episcopal see for the Diocese of Visby. The Hanseatic League, ...

) is a Swedish former international

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 ...

rider. He was a member of the Swedish team that finished third in the 1988 and

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

World Team Cup The World Team Cup was the international men's team championship of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). The inaugural edition of the tournament was contested in 1975 in Kingston, Jamaica and was called the Nations Cup. No tourname ...

finals. He earned 26 caps for the Sweden national speedway team.

Career

Born on the Norland Island Gotland, Tony Olsson began his career with the club Bysarna. In 1982, he made his debut for the senior team and already 1983 he won Rider of the season. He twice finished runner-up in the Swedish Under-21 Championship in 1984 and 1985. One year later in 1986, Olsson finished runner-up in the World Under-21 Championship, despite suffering an engine failure in one heat. In 1988 he played a huge part in Bysarna becoming Swedish champions. The same year he won the Swedish Pairs Championship with former World Champion Per Jonsson. In 1991 he won it again with Dennis Löfqvist. In 1989 Olsson became the only Swedish rider to qualify for the World Final in Munich. In the only World Final of his career he finished in eighth place. Olsson rode in the United Kingdom for the Reading Racers from 1986, where he became the team captain and then onto the Swindon Robins for a year in 1991 after he was forced out of Reading's line-up due to

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

restrictions after winning the British League Championship in 1990. After riding for Exeter Falcons in 1992 he returned in 1993, after a loan spell with Belle Vue Aces and was part of the Reading team that won the Fours championship. In 1994, whilst on loan again to the Swindon Robins, he won the British League Division Two Pairs Championship, partnering Tony Langdon, during the 1994 British League Division Two season. He returned to the Racers in 1995 and in his final season in 1996 he was voted 'Rider of the Year' by the Reading fans. (accessed 2 October 2007)

Retirement

After his retirement he became the team manager of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. As team manager he won the Speedway World Championship in 2003 and 2004. He now works as Race Director in the Speedway Grand Prix.

World Final Appearances

Individual World Championship

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Olympic Stadium ''Olympic Stadium'' is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports ...

- 8th - 8pts

World Team Cup

* 1986 -

Bradford Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 reform, the city status in the United Kingdo ...

, Odsal Stadium (with Per Jonsson / Erik Stenlund / Jimmy Nilsen / Jan Andersson) - 4th - 73pts (0) * 1988 -

Long Beach Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...

, Veterans Memorial Stadium (with Conny Ivarsson /

Henrik Gustafsson Henrik Anders (Henka) Gustafsson (born 14 August 1970) is a Swedish former Motorcycle speedway rider. He won the 1993 World Pairs Championship with Tony Rickardsson and the Speedway World Team Cup in 1994 and 2000. He earned 50 caps for the Swed ...

/ Jimmy Nilsen / Per Jonsson) - 3rd - 22pts (4) *

, Odsal Stadium (with

Mikael Blixt Mikael Blixt (born 8 August 1964) is a former speedway rider from Sweden. He earned 18 caps for the Sweden national speedway team. Speedway career Blixt rode in the top tier of British Speedway during the 1982 British League season, riding f ...

/ Per Jonsson / Jimmy Nilsen / Erik Stenlund) - 3rd - 30pts (7)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olsson, Tony 1965 births Living people Swedish speedway riders Reading Racers riders Swindon Robins riders Exeter Falcons riders Ipswich Witches riders Swedish expatriate speedway riders in England Sportspeople from Visby Bysarna riders Smederna riders