Repsol Honda Team open the 2017 X-Trial World Championship in Barcelona

The 2017 FIM X-Trial World Championship season officially gets underway this weekend in Barcelona. Repsol Honda Team will line up Toni Bou, Takahisa Fujinami and Jaime Busto for the Trial Indoor opener in the Catalan capital on Sunday 5th February for the 40th edition of the event.

The X-Trial season kicks off with the Barcelona Indoor Trial which over the years has become something of a ‘classic’ in the trial world. Toni Bou arrives eager to defend his reign of ten world titles. Repsol Honda Team’s incumbent X-Trial champion will start as favourite in a four-trial championship where riders will have to battle hard from the get-go and errors could prove costly. Toni will be looking to dominate from the start after having let last season’s opening date in the U.K. slip through his hands. Earlier in 2017, Bou again took part in the indoor event in Sheffield, U.K. clinching victory on the day, although points do not officially count towards the World Championship.

Toni Bou won’t be alone in Barcelona. The ten-time victor – with the last eight wins on the trot – will appear alongside Repsol Honda Team stalwart Takahisa Fujinami and the promising Jaime Busto. The Japanese rider – who ranked third in the world in the 2016 outdoor discipline and fifth indoors – has yet to shine in the indoor discipline as he has done in the open air. ‘Fujigas’, as one of the most popular riders on the circuit, will have the crowd firmly behind him as always.

Young Basque rider Jaime Busto returns to the Palau Sant Jordi intent on honing his indoor technique. The pressure to produce higher-level results has led to below-par performances on his two previous participations in Barcelona Indoor. This year the Spanish hopeful is on a mission to break the bad spell.

Fans from around the globe will converge on the Barcelona event for a feast of thrilling competition and technique. In time-honoured fashion, the trial begins at 17:00 hrs on Sunday with eight sections to test the eight rider’s skill to the limit.

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2017 X-TRIAL CALENDAR

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Barcelona Trial Indoor is the blue riband race in the discipline. The event has been disputed forty years consecutively but it’s, for very first time, the opening round of the World Championship.
• The first Barcelona Trial Indoor took place on a Thursday in the old Palacio de Deportes in Barcelona with free access to those in possession of the SoloMoto magazine which organized the event.
• Jaume Subirà, on a Montesa Cota 348, was the winner of the first trial which has since had 11 different winners.
• The first four-stroke bike to triumph in Barcelona was the Honda RTL of Belgian Eddy Lejeune, also the first rider to clinch a hat-trick of victories.
• Toni Bou is the rider with the most victories in Palau Sant Jordi: 10, with a recent consecutive run of eight wins out of the last eight disputed.
• Takahisa Fujinami has finished on the podium four times in Barcelona. Jaime Busto has taken part in the two most recent events as the organisation’s wildcard entry.