The FIM X-Trial World Champion kicks off a new campaign this weekend. The new 2020 season is scheduled to begin on Réunion, the island in the Indian Ocean, where Repsol Honda Team rider Toni Bou, will begin the defence of this title.
The 2020 X-Trial World Championship gets on the road again this weekend with a trip to the Indian Ocean. Réunion, the French overseas department situated some 9300 kilometres from Paris, will host the season opener, eight months after the 2019 campaign wrapped up. Stade Jean Ivoula in the capital of Saint Denis will be the venue for the 2020 FIM X-Trial curtain-raiser on Saturday, 16 November.
As current champion, Toni Bou, will be one of the five fixed riders in the competition; a further three riders will be added, making a total of eight participants for each of the seven season events. Bou will tackle the new campaign just days after rounding off the highly-successful 2019 season which saw the rider scoop the X-Trial and TrialGP world championship titles, taking the honours in both individual and team competitions, including the Spanish championship.
The trial is set to start at 20:30 (local time, GMT +4) and is scheduled to finish at 23:15. On laps one and two there will be a total of five sections to overcome, while the final will consist of six.
FIM X-Trial 2020 World Championship calendar
| November 16, 2019 | X-Trial Reunion island | France |
| November 23, 2019 | X-Trial Rennes | France |
| January 19, 2020 | X-Trial Budapest | Hungary |
| February 2, 2020 | X-Trial Barcelona | Spain |
| February 15, 2020 | X-Trial Bilbao | Spain |
| March 21, 2020 | X-Trial Wiener Neustadt | Austria |
| April 25, 2020 | X-Trial Andorra la Vella | Andorra |
Toni Bou
After 2019, a great year, we are really looking forward to starting the new season. We started very early and it will be a strange season, as there will be a one-month break between the second and third trial. It will be interesting to see how the first X-Trial plays out as there is a lot of rivalry, as everyone is very strong and it’s really hard to make a difference in these X-Trial events. We have prepared this season as best we can and we hope to achieve our goal, which will be to achieve a 14th consecutive season win.
