Zdeněk Simota (born 4 May 1985 in

Prachatice Prachatice (; ) is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 11,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument reservations, urban monumen ...

, Czech Republic) also known as Sam Simota, is a former

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 from the Czech Republic. He earned 5 international caps for the

Czech Republic national speedway team The Czech Republic national speedway team is one of the major teams in international motorcycle speedway. History As Czechoslovakia The Czechoslovakia speedway team (which consisted predominantly of Czech Republic riders) competed in the ina ...

Career

Simota began riding at the age of nine. The highlights of his career were becoming the Czech Under-21 Champion in 2004 and reaching the semi-final of the European Championships. He has been a meeting reserve in the Czech 2006 Speedway Grand Prix. In 2005, Simota was introduced into the British

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

for the

Reading Racers Reading Racers were a British motorcycle speedway team. Formed in 1968, they won four British League titles during their history. The club closed in October 2008 after the lease on Smallmead Stadium was sold and the site was demolished. His ...

as an injury replacement for Danny Bird. In 2007, he rode for the Racers in the Elite League. During a race meet in Hungary in May 2008 Simota suffered serious injuries which ended his season. By 2009, he was back in training and rode for the Czech team AK Plzeň, the Polish team Orzel Lodz, and the Danish team Brovst. He returned to Britain in

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

and spent three seasons with

Plymouth Devils The Plymouth Gladiators are a speedway team in the British SGB Championship. The team competed during various seasons from 1932 to 1969, before reforming after a gap of thirty-six years in 2006. In 2021, the club successfully applied to join t ...

from 2014 until 2016.

References

1985 births Living people Czech speedway riders European Pairs Speedway Champions Peterborough Panthers riders Plymouth Devils riders Reading Racers riders Czech expatriate speedway riders in England {{CzechRepublic-speedway-bio-stub