2023 provisional calendar released
With this year’s series only recently wrapped up, the provisional dates for the 2023 Hertz FIM Trial World Championship have been released and with a seventh round added to the schedule – and each round featuring two days of points-scoring competition – fans are in for a feet-up feast!
Included in the calendar are two new venues – at Arteixo in Spain and Vertolaye in France – and Japan’s legendary Motegi facility is set to return to the series after missing out for the last three years due to the pandemic.
The action will get under way on April 14-16 at Arteixo on the north western tip of Spain before shifting south to the tried and tested venue of Gouveia in Portugal the following weekend.
Set on the edge of the beautiful Serra da Estrela Natural Park in the north of the country, Gouveia has been the base for three world rounds and the 2021 Trial Des Nations in the last five years so the best riders on the planet are well-versed with its big, grippy boulders.
Competitors then head 7,000 miles east to the Land of the Rising Sun and the magical Motegi circuit just north of Tokyo on May 19-21 which, before Covid struck, had enjoyed an unbroken 20-year run on the TrialGP calendar.
With sections laid out on a wooded hillside studded with imposing granite rocks, the weather here can play a big part in proceedings but one thing is for sure and that’s the guarantee of a warm welcome for the TrialGP of Japan after an absence of four years.
On June 9-11 the action will resume in the land-locked ‘micro state’ of San Marino. The FIM Trial World Championship last stopped off at Baldasserrona in 2010 when who else but Toni Bou came out on top.
Only four of the current crop of TrialGP riders – that’s Bou and his fellow Spaniards Adam Raga and Jeroni Fajardo plus Italy’s Matteo Grattarola – competed here last time around but after a gap of 13 years any advantage they may have is negligible.
By complete contrast, everyone should be familiar with Sant Julià de Lòria in Andorra which is the venue for round five of the 2023 championship on June 16-18.
The super-sized rocks and precipitous climbs of the Pyrenean principality have become a mainstay of the championship with eight TrialGP of Andorra rounds having been staged here since 2013.
The TrialGP of Italy is another regular date in the TrialGP diary but next year’s venue at Sestriere over the weekend of July 21-23 hasn’t featured on the calendar since 2003.
The world-famous ski resort, situated in the Italian Alps in the west of the country, will present a tough challenge to competitors who will be competing at an altitude that’s much higher than even Andorra has to offer.
Following the traditional summer break, the series will reconvene at Vertolaye for the TrialGP of France – the seventh and final round – on September 1-3.
The season will then sign off at Auron in France over the weekend of September 8-10 with the FIM Trial Vintage Trophy and Trial Des Nations.
TrialGP and Trial2 riders will contest all seven rounds while TrialGP Women competitors will miss just San Marino and Andorra. Trial3 will only sit out the TrialGP of Japan while the Trial2 Women title will be decided in Andorra, Italy and France.
To view the calendar click HERE.
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