7:00am Monday 21st July 2008
By Phil Chard
NEWLY crowned World Team Cup champion Bjarne Pedersen has played down his Team Cup final spat with Tomasz Gollob after Denmark lifted the trophy, claiming it was just "heat of the moment stuff".
Pirates' captain impressed to score 11 of the Dane's 49 points as they defeated Poland (46), Sweden (39) and Australia (21) in front of their own fans in rainy Vojens on Saturday.
But in a rare show of petulance by the normally mild-mannered Poole Castle Cover man, Pedersen used his back wheel to shower Gollob in shale after the Pole had barged past him to win heat 17.
The Dane was angry - with himself as much as with Gollob - for losing a race on the last lap he knew he should really have won.
As they tore down the back straight for the final time, Gollob elbowed his way past leader Pedersen through a narrow gap on the outside going into the third corner.
Pedersen tried to close the gap between him and the fence to peg the Pole behind, but made his move too late and the duo almost went down together with the Dane's shoulder and right arm almost locking into Gollob's left elbow.
At one stage it looked as though they might both fall at top speed risking injury, but, fortunately, neither crashed and they safely completed the race.
Gollob's win propelled Poland four points ahead with only eight races left, and Pedersen's slip up could have been disastrous for his country.
Looking back, the Pirate told the Echo: "I was really up for it. I hate losing and just felt losing that heat could help bring us down.
"It (the shale spraying incident) is just something that happened. It was heat of the moment stuff.
"I was just up for the final and wanted to win. That's why I reacted like that."
Referring to his hard riding outside charge, Gollob told Sky Sports: "That's not my problem. I'm trying to win."
Denmark team manager Jan Staechmann felt Pedersen had ridden "a bit too conservatively on the last lap.
"He was trying to ride safely. He said that to me himself. But this is the world final, you have to keep it wound on."
Pedersen had the last laugh, though, in front of a sell-out 18,000 crowd as Denmark won five of the last eight races, including his pressure cooker heat 22 triumph over Rune Holta, to overturn the deficit.
The Pirate, who had also helped Denmark lift the World Team Cup at Reading in 2006, said: "It's great to come out on top again after relinquishing the cup to Poland at Leszno last year.
"I'm not saying we were surprised by Poland, but we maybe expected Australia and Sweden to push us harder rather than them."
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