World Trial Championship
The Repsol rider Toni ou today in Italy scored his seventh win of the season and takes his fourth consecutive World Championship title, eighth taking into account Indoor titles.
Toni Bou this Sunday took his fourth Trial World Champion title, all consecutive, having clocked up another win – the seventh of the current season – in the tenth and penultimate point-scoring event of the competition. It would have been enough for the Repsol rider to finish fifth today to tie up this 36th World Championship competition with one meeting to go, the Czech Republic Grand Prix, which will take place on 5th September.
Bou refused to play it safe and he performed without making any concessions, setting the best score in the trial’s two rounds.
With this result, the Repsol rider confirms his supremacy in a discipline which he has completely dominated since 2007, the season from when, alongside Repsol and Montesa, he has won the specialty year after year, accumulating eight world titles, four nationals and three wins with the Spanish team in the trial of the nations.
His teammate, Takahisa Fujinami, accompanied him onto the podium. With his third position, the Japanese rider has conceded a place in the World Championship standings but still has the chance to fight for runner-up at the last event. Another Repsol rider, Laia Sanz, finished just out of the points.
Toni Bou says: “I set out to win the championship by winning this event and I feel very happy to have achieved that. The season has been complicated by a rule change which has given us a lot of work. If I were to go back in time, I would think that first title I won in 2007 was great, and from then on I have been gaining in experience, learning new ways of working and dealing with different situations.”
“This fourth title was very important for me, now that in the history of the World Championships I only have Jordi Tarrés and Dougie Lampkin ahead of me. Anyway, I don’t want to become obsessed with their seven titles, as that would stop me enjoying each and every one of the good times I’m having.”
Takahisa Fujinami says: “First of all, I would like to congratulate Toni. He has once again been flawless, while I struggled with the pressure of securing the runner-up spot. I made too many mistakes in the first round and lost second place on the leaderboard. The difference is minimal and I think that runner-up is far from lost. At the next event, I’ll just have to finish in front of my rival, there’s no other way.”
Toni Bou Biography:
Born on 17th October 1986 and living in Piera (Barcelona), Toni Bou started as a Trial Bike rider when he was eight. Having been declared World Champion in his class of the speciality, in 1999 he swapped to motorbike Trial.
Immersed in the motorcycle speciality, in 2001 he won the Spanish Junior Championships, a title which would be followed by the 250cc European Cup for up-and-coming talent in 2002 and the European Champion of 2003. In 2005, he was part of the winning team in the Trial of Nations, was runner-up in the Spanish Indoor Trial Championships and fifth in the World Outdoor Championships.
The following year, Bou achieved his first wins in the highest class, both in the Indoor category (third in the World Championships), as in outdoor, where he again ended up occupying fifth place on the final World Championship leaderboard.
He joined the Repsol Montesa-HRC team in 2007 and the same year he was the top rider in the World Indoor Trial Championship. Riding a Montesa Cota 4RT, Toni Bou won four of the eight rounds in the World Indoor Trial Championship. And his high level made him into one of the favourites to win the World Outdoor Trial Championship, which he also won comfortably after winning 9 of the 11 rounds. To round it all off the Repsol rider also won the Campeonato de España Indoor and his third victory in the Trial of Nations representing Spain, all of them consecutive.
The following year Toni regained the World Indoor Trial title, and after seven victories in the World Outdoor – and five 2nd positions – Bou was once again proclaimed King of the category for the second year runing. To close the season he regained the title he had won in the World Indoor Trial Championship with the Spanish selection, and the Campeonato de España de Trial Indoor.
With a higher level every year, in 2009 Toni Bou renewed both his Indoor and Outdoor Trial World Championship titles. In indoor, he took four wins in five rounds and seven in outdoor, of the eleven on the calendar. He topped off the season by also taking the national indoor and outdoor titles, as well as winning the Trial des Nations for the fifth time with a Spanish team, closing a record season in which he won the five titles he competed for.
The Repsol rider entered the 2010 season without lowering his standards at all and he has managed to realize his two main aims for the season: re-establish, for the fourth year in a row, his World Championship wins, both Indoor and Outdoor.
Four wins and one second position in the five events which again in 2010 made up the Indoor World Championship calendar, confirmed his overwhelming command of the speciality. With the seventh win in ten events contested in the Outdoor World Championships this afternoon, the Repsol rider has achieved his fourth consecutive World Championship.
