Stars swoop for highly-rated Czech rider

The King’s Lynn Stars have completed a deal for Czech charger Jan Kvech to join the club.The highly rated 22-year-old is competing as a full-time Grand Prix rider this year and will be making his debut in British Speedway.Kvech is a former double European Under-19 champion, and he went on to finish as runner-up to Mateusz Cierniak in the 2022 SGP2 (World Under-21 series).His performance in last August’s Grand Prix Challenge landed him a place in the main 2024 series, and he is already well placed for a return next year having qualified for this year’s Challenge which will be on home territory in Pardubice.Kvech rides for Zielona Gora in the Polish Ekstraliga and has recently made it clear he would be interested in joining the growing list of GP riders to be racing regularly in the UK.Whilst the signing is dependent on the normal approvals and paperwork, the expectation is that he will be able to make his debut for the PSH Environmental Stars in their home clash with Oxford on Monday June 17.He will join the Stars on an assessed 6.00 average. And club bosses have paid tribute to two of their former riders of the same nationality – Stars legend Tomas Topinka, and another Lynn old boy Filip Sitera – for their help in bringing Kvech to the Adrian Flux Arena. Operations manager Dale Allitt said: “We actually completed the deal on Wednesday evening when Tomas was celebrating his 50th birthday, so many thanks to him for putting that on hold, as well as to Filip.“Both have strong connections with King’s Lynn of course, and they have both given us great assistance in this matter.“We all feel that Jan’s style is very much one which should suit English tracks, maybe more so than some of the riders who have only ever ridden in Poland. “Jan is a Grand Prix rider, he’s 22 years old and if you were going out with a shopping list for a rider on a 6.00 average, you would look at Jan Kvech and he ticks every box.“He’s an exciting rider with everything going for him, and other than Robert Lambert it’s been a long time since King’s Lynn had had a GP rider in their full-time one-to-seven. “I hope this shows the fans that we won’t be giving up by any stretch. It’s been an absolutely terrible start to the season, but we feel this is a show of intent and also something that will be good for British Speedway, with yet another GP rider now in the UK.“With Freddie Lindgren also coming in, we’ve now had two GP riders coming to the UK in the space of a week, and that’s brilliant for the profile of the sport here.“As far as the team is concerned, it’s very much a signing to strengthen following the problems we’ve had with the loss of Vadim (Tarasenko), the injury to Tobiasz (Musielak) and now with Michael (Palm Toft) ruled out. We will re-declare at the appropriate time.”