Speedway: Rider's serious spinal injury puts paid to Monarchs match

Published on Friday 3 September 2010 11:33

Edinburgh Scotwaste Monarchs were forced to abandon their Autumn challenge speedway fixture against Berwick Bandits at Armadale last night following a serious injury to visiting rider Adrian Rymel.

The spill happened in the opening heat of the meeting which featured Monarchs pair Ryan Fisher and Matthew Wethers, who opposed Bandits duo Rymel and young Pole Marcin Rempala.

At the first time of asking, Fisher was disqualified after overcooking the first bend.

In the rerun, Rempala leaned on Wethers going into the first corner but the Monarchs skipper held firm.

Suddenly Rempala's chain broke loose, causing him to straighten up and send teammate Rymel clattering into the safety fence.

It quickly became apparent that Rymel was in a great deal of distress and after a lengthy delay while he was attended to by medical staff, he was eventually taken by ambulance to Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary with a suspected spinal injury.

Because the medical team were unwilling to transfer him to another ambulance which initially had been called to the track, Monarchs officials had no option but to abandon the match, having failed to complete one race.

Berwick owner John Anderson said: "It appears that Adrian has a spinal injury. To start with he didn't have any feeling in his legs, but just before he left for the hospital he did have feeling in his toes, although his legs were still numb.

"His teammate Marcin feels bad about the incident simply because his chain came off and it was this which caused the domino effect which brought our two riders down.

"The paramedics were very concerned about Adrian's back and did not want to move him from the track ambulance into a National Health ambulance and this is why the match could not continue."

With Berwick in contention for an end of season Young Shield place, Anderson admitted losing their No.1 rider is a massive blow.

"It's a huge loss because Adrian has been riding so well for us. It's going to be hard to replace him, we can use a guest but it's not the same as having your own team on the track."

Monarchs co-boss John Campbell said: "It's very unfortunate that this happened but even if we could have continued with the meeting, I'm not sure we wanted to given the circumstances, and we all wish Adrian a speedy recovery."

Meanwhile Monarchs head for Stoke Potters tonight seeking just one point to clinch the Premier League title.

Wethers said: "We normally go pretty well at Stoke but while we are very close to winning the league we are taking nothing for granted. We will go out as we normally do to try and win every race and hopefully get the result we require."

The champions elect also visit Glasgow Tigers tomorrow.