Dominant: Nicki Pedersen

World Cup Round Two
Denmark 63 points
Sweden 50.5
Great Britain 25.5
Czech Republic 13

Also see

• LIVE Speedway only on Sky Sports
• Bet on 2008 Speedway season
• Check out the 2008 GP calendar
• British Speedway standings

Denmark have joined Australia in Saturday's World Cup final on home ground after taking victory in Monday night's second round in Coventry.

The Danes enjoyed a 12-and-a-half-point victory over Sweden at the Brandon Stadium, they in turn having a points haul double that achieved by Great Britain in third.

Jim Lynch's team nevertheless join Sweden in Thursday's race-off, alongside Russia and Cup-holders Poland.

It was a night ultimately given over to Scandinavian dominance in the West Midlands, with Denmark and Sweden taking victories in all but three of the evening's 25 heats.

Denmark set the tone by dropping just one point in the opening five heats. In contrast, and in spite of a team filled with either current or past Coventry riders, Great Britain struggled.

Early joker

They played the joker as early as heat six, but their evening was summed up by the subsequent performance of Scott Nicholls, Great Britain's captain caught napping at the start and coming home pointless.

Sweden were able to close the gap on the Danes to two points after Jonas Davidsson capitalised on their joker to take six points in heat 10.

From a Great Britain perspective, matters became worse in heat 11 when, with Nicholls excluded, Adrian Rymel scored the Czech Republic's first win of the evening to enable them to close the gap to just two points.

The Czech team then had the chance to take third place when they played their joker in heat 14, but Rymel was instead excluded after colliding with Daniel Nermark - the Swede winning to tie Denmark out front.

Wins for Kenneth Bjerre and Niels-Kristian Iversen then handed Denmark the initiative once more, the latter pipping Nicholls on the line in heat 16 after he had looked likely to give Great Britain their first win of the evening.

Advantage

Chris Harris finally achieved that target in the next heat, and with Lee Richardson finishing second behind Denmark's Hans Andersen in heat 18, Great Britain enjoyed a seven-point advantage over the Czechs.

Indeed, with heat 19 producing a dead heat between Sweden and Great Britain, Olly Allen's second place behind Nicki Pedersen next time out ensured that the home team had picked up 12-and-a-half points in their last five outings.

However, it was a case of 'too little, too late' for Great Britain, with three Danish and two Swedish victories in the final five heats amply demonstrating their superiority.