The Repsol Montesa Honda rider Toni Bou has won the Geneva Indoor Trial, which opens the 2011 World Championship of this category. With this win, Toni Bou has made a strong start to his world title defence, in which he has won the last four editions of this competition. In this opening trial, this speciality takes on its new name, which will be called X-Trail from now on.
Toni Bou finished the qualifying round without picking up a single penalty point and took the lead of the trail in the semi-final, a round which the several times World Champion finished with 5 points, half those of his nearest rival. With this advantage, Bou was able to make the most of his credit in a final consisting of three parallel races and three individual zones.
His team-mate in Repsol Montesa Honda, Takahisa Fujinami, who also had zero points in the qualifying, had a problem in the last zone of the semi-final and was knocked out of the final leg of the trial.
The second trail that scores in the X-Trail World Championship will be held on the 22 January in the French city of Marseille.
Toni Bou:
“I’m very happy as I couldn’t have started the championship and my title defence in a better way. It was a very difficult trail in which I was very tense, but the end result was an excellent relief. The five-point advantage I had at the end of the semi-final was very valuable. I reached the final zone with one less but still enough margin to allow me to be careful in a complicated step and not take any risks, which could have jeopardised victory and the world championship lead.”
Takahisa Fujinami:
“The handlebars of the bike moved in the last zone and that’s where I got left out of the final, which I still had the possibility of reaching. I felt very disappointed”.
