UPDATE: DARCY WARD

The latest news on Darcy Ward remains sketchy despite a Press briefing held by his Polish club Zielona Gora on Monday lunchtime.

Club doctor Robert Zapotoczny revealed that after a two and half hour operation Darcy is breathing on his own and has full recognition of his surroundings he is unable at this early stage to provide a definitive prognosis of his full condition.

"We will know a lot more during the next 48 hours as we will update the speedway family as soon as we can, but we need that additional time to be sure of the extent of Darcy's injuries."

The Zielona Gora club echoed the thoughts of everyone involved in speedway and expressed their thanks for the messages of support that have been levelled at Darcy Ward. They confirmed that Chris Holder continues to be by Darcy's side, Chris having made the dash across to the hospital as soon as he learned of the crash that happened in the final heat of Zielona Gora's meeting on Sunday against GKM Grudziadz.

Poole promoter Matt Ford advised "We will continue of course to monitor the situation of Darcy and update on his condition when we are in a position to do. It goes without saying that the news has hit our club hard. We treat Darcy as one of our own and as I said last night, we will continue to do everything possible to help Darcy through this difficult time.

"On the subject of supporting injured riders I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the Poole supporters for raising a terrific £1,430 in our track collection for the Speedway Riders Benefit Fund that we held in July. It is a staggering total and I can't thank the fans enough for their generosity."