The Kraków Speedway Stadium or Stadion Sportowy KS Wanda is a 12,000-capacity

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four clockwise, anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that ...

stadium in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

, Poland. The location of the stadium is in the north east district of

Nowa Huta Nowa Huta (, literally "The New Ironworks") is the easternmost district of Kraków, Poland. With more than 200,000 inhabitants, it is one of the most populous areas of the city. Until 1990, the neighbouring districts were considered expansions o ...

on the Odmogile road. The venue was used by the

Kraków Speedway Kraków Speedway was the Polish motorcycle speedway teams based in Kraków. History 1956 to 1965 In 1956, the first club to be registered in Kraków was Auto Mobil Klub Nowa Huta (AMK Nowa Huta). The team competed in the second league during th ...

team, who competed in the

Team Speedway Polish Championship The Team Speedway Polish Championship ( Polish: ''Drużynowe Mistrzostwa Polski, DMP'') is an annual speedway event held each year in different Polish clubs organized by the Polish Motor Union (PZM) since 1948. In 2000, the First Division was r ...

until 2019.

History

The stadium was purpose-built for motorcycle speedway in 1957 and was one of the first to install floodlights. On 9 July 1959, the stadium hosted an international match between Poland and Austria. On 11 October 1960, Poland hosted England in an international match that attracted a record crowd of 25,000. This was followed by being selected as a qualifying venue for the

1964 Speedway World Team Cup 1964 Speedway World Team Cup was the fifth edition of the FIM Speedway World Team Cup to determine the team world champions. The final took place in Abensberg, West Germany. The World Champion title was won by Sweden (34 pts) who beat Soviet U ...

. In 1965, the speedway team folded and the stadium remained empty for 28 years. The stadium deteriorated during the 28 period with only the football pitch inside the track being used. However, in 1993, the stadium underwent renovation with six central sections of the west stand rebuilt. This was followed by further renovations on the east stand in 2009 and on the track itself in 2014 and 2016 respectively. In 2017, the stadium became an all-seated stadium.

Track Records

1957-1965 (403 m) *87.0 sec. Zygmuntowski, 20 October 1957 *85.7 sec. Zdzisław Zachara, 27 October 1957 *84.0 sec. Bogdan Jaroszewicz, 20 April 1958 *83.5 sec. Bogdan Jaroszewicz, 30 March 1959 *83.0 sec. Zygmunt Pytko, 6 April 1959 *82.5 sec. Bogdan Jaroszewicz, 11 October 1959 *81.9 sec.

Florian Kapała Florian Kapała (1929 - 2007) was an international speedway rider from Poland. Speedway career Kapała reached the final of the Speedway World Championship in the 1961 Individual Speedway World Championship. He was a four times Polish cham ...

, 25 October 1959 *78.1 sec.

Peter Craven Peter Theodore Craven
, fansite biography by Jim Blanchard. (accessed 12 July 2006). (21 June 1934 – ...

8 November 1960 1993-2005 (396 m) *72.0 sec.

Antonín Kasper Sr. Antonín Kasper Sr. (31 October 1932 – 12 November 2017) was an international Motorcycle speedway rider from Czechoslovakia. He earned 13 international caps for the Czechoslovakia national speedway team. Speedway career Kasper Sr. won two m ...

, 12 April 1993 *70.9 sec.

, 2 April 1995 *70.8 sec.

Zenon Kasprzak Zenon Kasprzak (born 10 May 1962) is a former international speedway rider from Poland. Speedway career Kasprzak reached the final of the Speedway World Championship in the 1988 Individual Speedway World Championship. He won the Continental S ...

, 21 April 1996 *70.2 sec.

Zoltán Adorján Zoltán Adorján (born 15 November 1961 in Debrecen, Hungary) is former international motorcycle speedway rider.Bamford, R. & Shailes, G. (2002). ''A History of the World Speedway Championship''. Stroud: Tempus Publishing. He is a 13 times Hun ...

, 29 September 1996 *70.1 sec. Robert Dados, 6 May 1997 *69.6 sec. Sergei Darkin, 23 May 1999 2009-2019 (389.5 m) *67.00 sec.

Emil Sayfutdinov Emil Damirovich Sayfutdinov (; born 26 October 1989) is a motorcycle speedway rider from Russia. He is a member of the Russia national speedway team. He is a three times World team champion, twice World Junior champion and a two-time winner o ...

, 23 August 2009 *66.00 sec. Janusz Kołodziej, 3O October 2010 *65.94 sec. Andrzej Lebedev, 26 April 2015 *64.98 sec.

Andriy Karpov Andriy Karpov (born 16 January 1987) also spelt Andriej Karpov is a motorcycle speedway rider from Ukraine. Career Karpov came to prominence when competing the Polish leagues, initially for the Ukrainian teams in Polish Speedway Second Leagu ...

, 26 April 2015

Gallery

File:Wanda Kraków Stadion 2014.jpeg, The stadium in 2014 File:Stadion SPEEDWAY WANDA INSTAL 7 - Nowa Huta.jpg, The arena in 2016 File:Stadion SPEEDWAY WANDA INSTAL - Nowa Huta.jpg, Riders warming up in 2016

References

{{Motorcycle speedway tracks Speedway venues in Poland Sports venues in Kraków 1957 establishments in Poland Sports venues completed in 1957