The World Pairs Final 1972
By Tracy Holmes

On the 1st of June, the World Pairs Final was held at Boras in Sweden with the home country having two teams to cheer on. Team 1 was Anders Michanek and Bengt Jansson, who had qualified from the Western Semi-Final along with New Zealand by Ivan Mauger/Ronnie Moore and England's Ray Wilson and Terry Betts. Scotland, Australia, Denmark and Norway all missing out. Team 2 by Bernt Persson and Hasse Holmqvist were seeded direct to the Final.

A huge talking point was the performance of Poland's Zbigniew Marcinkowski. He won three of his six heats, downing the Kiwis in the process. Marcinkowski gated in his last heat but was overtaken by Holmqvist. Then the gutsy Pole hit a pothole and crashed. This pothole that developed was well known by Ronnie Moore who had also hit it but managed to hang on. But instead of the 5-1 over Sweden 1, Ronnie came in last. He made sure to avoid it in his last heat.

Victory for Sweden 2 was only a 5-1 away in their last heat BUT, England reversed the order much to the dispair of the 'home town' pair. And it would not be the last time that year, Bernt Persson would miss a World Final Gold Medal by duffing his last heat !

With 5-1s for New Zealand and England in the last round, they tied on 24 points each. Mauger and Wilson would fight for the Gold Medals. If Ivan had any edge, it was the Kiwis 5-1 over the Poms in heat 7. Throughout the meeting, Ronnie Moore had ridden the inside, hence hitting the pothole. So before the run-off, he told Ivan, avoid it at all costs ! Ivan won the toss and chose the inside gate. What happened ? Ivan made the gate and, in his own words,

"In my excitement of thinking I was going to win the World Pairs Championship again with my hero, I stopped concentrating on exactly what I was doing and hit the pothole !"

Consolation of some sort came for Bernt Persson by beating his good friend Anders Michanek in the Bronze Medal run-off.

Heats

1 Marcinkowski Stancl Holub Jastrzebski
2 Michanek Persson Holmqvist Jansson
3 Wilson Betts Radacsi Perenyi
4 Marcinkowski Mauger Moore Jastrzebski
5 Michanek Jansson Stancl Holub
6 Persson Holmqvist Radacsi Perenyi
7 Moore Mauger Wilson Betts
8 Michanek Marcinkowski Jansson Jastrzebski
9 Persson Holmqvist Holub Stancl
10 Mauger Moore Radacsi Perenyi
11 Wilson Marcinkowski Betts Jastrzebski ef
12 Holub Stancl Radacsi Perenyi
13 Wilson Michanek Betts Jansson
14 Persson Moore Mauger Holmqvist
15 Marcinkowski Jastrzebski Radacsi Perenyi
16 Betts Wilson Stancl Holub
17 Mauger Jansson Michanek Moore
18 Holmqvist Persson Marcinkowski f Jastrzebski ef
19 Mauger Moore Stancl Holub
20 Michanek Jansson Radacsi Perenyi
21 Wilson Betts Holmqvist Persson
3rd place run-off; Persson Michanek
1st place run-off; Wilson Mauger f/x

1st England 24
Ray Wilson 3 1 3 3 2 3 15
Terry Betts 2 0 1 1 3 2 9

2nd New Zealand 24
Ivan Mauger 2 2 3 1 3 3 14
Ronnie Moore 1 3 2 2 0 2 10

3rd Sweden 2 22
Bernt Persson 2 3 3 3 2 0 13
Hasse Holmqvist 1 2 2 0 3 1 9

4th Sweden 1 22
Anders Michanek 3 3 3 2 1 3 15
Bengt Jansson 0 2 1 0 2 2 7

5th Poland 15
Zbigniew Marcinkowski 3 3 2 2 3 f 13
Viktor Jastrzebski 0 0 0 ef 2 ef 2

6th CZ 12
Jiri Stancl 2 1 0 2 1 1 7
Jan Holub 1 0 1 3 0 0 5

7th Hungary 6
Ferens Radacsi 1 1 1 1 1 1 6
Pal Perenyi 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

This article was first published on 3rd August 2014