PETERBOROUGH have won the race to sign exciting Danish youngster Michael Jepsen Jensen.
A handful of Elite League clubs were chasing the signature of the teenager, rated one of the most promising young world talents.
The 19-year-old Jensen has agreed to join the Readypower Panthers after two sightseeing visits to the East of England Showground.
He’s competing in tomorrow’s second final of the World Under 21 Championship and as long as the meeting goes ahead – the re-staging date if it’s rained off is Monday – he will make his Peterborough debut at Coventry on Monday night.
He will fly in to practice at the Showground on Monday morning to watch the Panthers take on Coventry (11am start) and then travel to Brandon for the second of the two Bank Holiday clashes with play-off chasing Bees.
Jensen finished ninth in the opening round of the World Under 21 Final at Poole last month and will be hoping to climb higher up the rankings with a good performance at Holsted tomorrow afternoon.
He’s also racing in both the Polish Ekstraleague for Torun and the Swedish Elitserien where he’s a teammate of Nicki Pedersen at Vargarna.
He was runner-up to Coventry’s new signing Piotr Pawlicki in the European Under 19 Final at Ljubljana, Slovenia, at the beginning of July and followed that up with tenth place in the second round of the Danish Final when he beat the three-times World Champion Pedersen in his second ride.
Last year he won the silver medal in the Danish Under 21 Final, dropping his only point to another Panthers’ asset, eventual winner Rene Bach.
Earlier he had helped Denmark win the Under 21 World Cup at Rye House, scoring 12 points from five rides in the final.
He’s currently in probably the best form of his career. In August he’s scored paid 30 points in two Superleague matches for Vojens, 18 in two outings for Vargarna, and seven points from four rides for Torun at Wroclaw.
He was also beaten only once – winning his last four rides after an opening race third place – as he top-scored for Denmark when they finished runners-up in the European Under 19 Team Championships.
Club owner Rick Frost said: “We have been talking with Michael for a long time but he didn’t want to commit himself to racing regularly in Britain.
“However he now feels the time is right and he is someone we were eager to bring to the Panthers.
“We always have to be looking forward and he’s someone who can play a long-term role in our future.
“He wants to have the rest of the season over here to get ready for next year and in view of our current league position we feel this is the right time to blood him.
“We are also looking ahead to the Knock Out Cup and hope he can help score the points we need in the away leg at Belle Vue to make sure we get through to the semi finals.”
