DOUBLE DIGITS FOR DANE IN DAUGAVPILS

Frederik Jakobsen celebrated joining the Pirates with an 11-point score in the first round of the World U21 Championships.

The Dane was racing in Daugavpils, Latvia when news broke that he would be the Pirates'replacement for Mateusz Sczepaniak on Friday, where he reached the semi-final heat of the opening round of the three round championship race but missed out on a place in the final after finishing third behind Bartosz Smektala and Brit Robert Lambert.

Jakobsen opened his account with two second places, the first behind ultimate meeting winner Maxim Drabik, his Lejonen (Sweden) team-mate and then to the passing Pole, Dominik Kubera.

But back to back victories in his third and fourth outings, the latter seeing him hold off intense pressure from local Latvian favourite Oleg Mihailov, kept him well in the hunt for glory before a tapes offence in his final heat earned him a disqualification limiting his heats score to 10 points.

That routed him into the second semi-final when his night came to an end, but with the title race moving on to Leszno, Poland on July 22nd, culminating in Pardubice, Czech Republic on September 28th, there is still plenty of time for the 20 year old Dane to stake a claim for gold.

Scorers: M.Drabik (POL) 20; R.Lambert (GBR) 17; B.Smektala (POL) 17; O.Mihailov (LAT) 12; D.Kubera (POL) 12; F.Jakbosen (DEN) 11; D.Kaczmarek (POL) 8; P.Hansen (DEN) 7; A.Lyager (DEN) 7; D.Bewley (GBR) 7; J.Kling (SWE) 6; A.Trofimovs (LAT); F.Hjelmland (SWE) 4; N.Skorja (SLO) 3; F.Hajek (CZE) 1; R.Chmiel (POL) 1; E.Matjuszonoks (LAT) 0; D.Kurmis (LAT) 0.