THE youngsters might be stealing the limelight in world speedway at the moment, but Bjarne Pedersen proved to Chris Holder and Darcy Ward that there is life in the old dogs yet.

Pirates legend Pedersen stole the thunder of Holder, the new hero of Wimborne Road, as Denmark sprung a surprise to qualify directly to Saturday’s World Cup final in Gorzow.

The 32-year-old was in inspired form to pip Holder, in tandem with Swede Andreas Jonsson, as Aussie boss Craig Boyce’s late tactical joker gamble blew up in his face.

Holder was leading race 23 after the Aussies had conveniently fallen six points behind the Swedes late on following Troy Batchelor’s suspect lock-up in the previous heat.

But Pedersen, left out of Poole Castle Cover’s one-to-seven this season, and Jonsson stole a march on the 23-year-old Pirate on lap two and he had to settle for third place.

That pretty much ended Australia’s evening and Boyce’s men will now travel to Gorzow for Thursday’s race-off along with the Swedes.

In truth, Holder and Ward should take none of the blame for the slow start to the meeting that left Australia with a mountain to climb.

Holder finished with 14 points from six rides, while Ward overcame a last place in his first race to notch 13 from six.

It was the misfiring Batchelor and Rory Schlein who will now be sweating on their race-off places with Pirates skipper Davey Watt almost certain to come into the reckoning when Boyce recovers from this meeting. For all of Holder’s heroics, Ward went just that little bit further with some scintillating riding fit for the world stage.

The 19-year-old got his own back on Nicki Pedersen following Monday’s altercation at Peterborough by closing the door on the Dane in race nine. Pedersen hit the gas too hard trying to hunt down Ward and slammed into the air fence. He was excluded for his troubles.

Ward had to settle for second place in the re-run behind Antonio Lindback, before a slight error of judgement let in Jonsson on the line in heat 15.

But Ward’s all-action style would certainly have made his presence clear to the FIM with wild cards ready to be dished out for the remaining world championship rounds. The world under-21 champion deserves his chance.

Bjarne Pedersen, meanwhile, was quietly going about his business in textbook manner, some heat 14 mechanical gremlins the only thing to deny him a full five-ride maximum.

Holder came back strongly from his heat 23 joker woes to win the final race, but he and Ward will now have to do it all again on Thursday.

Thankfully for them, Bjarne won’t be there.

Australia 47: Jason Crump (1-2-3-2-3) 11, Darcy Ward (0-2-3-2-3-3) 13, Troy Batchelor (0-1-2-1) 4, Rory Schlein (2-0-2-1) 5, Chris Holder (2-3-3-1-2-3) 14.

Sweden 48: Andreas Jonsson (3-2-3-1-2) 11, Freddie Lindgren (2-1-1-2-4) 10, Antonio Lindback (2-3-3-2-2) 12, Jonas Davidsson (3-2-1-1-1) 8, Thomas H Jonasson (1-2-2-2-0) 7.

Denmark 50: Nicki Pedersen (2-0-2-3-3) 10, Bjarne Pedersen (3-3-0-3-3) 12, Kenneth Bjerre (3-3-1-3-1) 11, Niels-Kristian Iversen (1-0-2-1-1) 5, Mads Korneliussen (3-3-1-3-2) 12.

Germany 9: Kevin Wolbert (0-2^-0-0-0) 2, Max Dilger (1-1-0-0-2) 4, Tobias Busch (1-0-0-0-0) 1, Mathias Schultz (0-1-1-0-0) 2, Tobias Kroner (0-0-0-0-0) 0.