|
The 2026 FIM Ice Speedway World Championship comes to a thrilling, adrenalin-charged conclusion this coming Saturday (11 April) when the third and deciding Final is held at Heerenveen’s superb Thialf Ice Stadium, situated around one-hundred-and-twenty-five kilometres north-east of Amsterdam, before the FIM Ice Speedway of Nations is staged at the Dutch venue the following day.
Following the first two Finals of the season, staged at Inzell in Germany in March, defending champion Martin Haarahiltunen leads the field as he attempts to win a fifth consecutive title, but his advantage is just two points after a dramatic opening weekend of competition in the Max Aicher Arena last month. The powerful thirty-five-year-old Swede swept to a dominant victory in the series’ first Final after remaining unbeaten throughout the Heat races and was on course for a repeat performance the following day until a crash in the Grand Final – for which he was not adjudged to be at fault – restricted him to third when he was unable to make the restart. As a result, with just one Final to go the top three positions – with Haarahiltunen leading his compatriot Niclas Svensson and Finland’s Max Koivula – are identical to this stage last season, although this time around it is much closer at the top with just four points separating the leading trio and Germany’s Lucas Bauer only another two points adrift in fourth. In 2025 it was Svensson who topped the podium when Heerenveen staged the concluding Final and although victory was not enough to depose Haarahiltunen, the thirty-five-year-old son of Swedish Ice Speedway legend Stefan Svensson – who retired at the age of sixty-five after taking victory in Heerenveen in 2024 – knows a repeat performance would see him strike FIM gold for the first time. After backing up his fourth-placed finish in this year’s opening Final with victory the following day, Svensson is clearly in great form. However, not only must he defeat Haarahiltunen, who so far this season has won every world championship race he has finished, he must also resist the strong challenges that are expected to come from Koivula and Italian licence holder Bauer. Aiming to upgrade his 2025 FIM bronze medal to gold this year, Koivula was a strong second in the opening Final of the campaign behind Haarahiltunen before clipping the reigning champion’s rear wheel in the following day’s Grand Final, resulting in a disqualification that limited him to fourth as Svensson won the two-rider restart from Bauer who had finished fifth the previous day. While the 2026 FIM Ice Speedway World Champion will realistically come from the current top four, they are being chased by a stacked field of talented riders who will all be hoping to sign off with a podium finish. Sitting seven points behind Bauer in fifth, 2024 silver medallist Max Niedermaier from Germany is still looking for his first podium finish of the season, though 2024 Finnish bronze medallist Heikki Huusko – who is just one point behind in sixth – was third in the first Final and both racers must be considered contenders, while it would be foolish to discount fast-starting Austrian Franz ‘Franky’ Zorn who claimed silver in 2023. The Dutch fans, who are renowned for their strong support for home riders, will have 2026 championship regulars Sebastian Reitsma, Jasper Iwema and Leon Kramer to cheer on, with Iwema – despite disappointing finishes in Inzell – representing perhaps the best chance for what would be a hugely popular podium finish. The action from the Thialf Ice Stadium is scheduled to get under way with the opening Heat at 19:00 (local time).
|
|
