2012 X-Trial World Trial Championship Round6

Milan, Italy 17/3/2012

No Final Lap in Milan

The X-Trial party made a short trip from Mallorca to Milan for the round 6 of the championship. Before the start of the event, the memorial ceremony took place for the Italian king of trial, Diego Bosis, who passed away last month.

-- Qualification Lap --

The sections in Milan were set up with the materials being used in the Italian Indoor championship, a bit similar to the Spanish obstacles with some tall stair cases and have the characteristics of either success or complete failure. Those style of the sections are not what Fujinami is very good at, unfortunately. The severity was high, too. The scoreboard showed that with an exception of Bou, who made all cleans, the riders survived in the Qualification Lap all dropped at least one five in the five observed sections.

Fujinami finished fifth with 13 points after dropping two fives, one two points and a point mistake with a single clean. He was only one point ahead of Gubian, and four points ahead of Oliberas at seventh, the Italian wild card rider. Fujinami's position for the Semi Final was not very safe.

There was a sad news of the French rider Alfredo Gomez, who was absent in Milan, that he withdrew from trial competition after being unable to set up the team for this year. That made a spot available, then Pol Tarres took over the role as a nominated rider. However, the young Spaniard crashed hard at the section1, and was sent to the hospital. It was reported that he suffered a broken wrist. There were two wild card riders, the above mentioned Oliver and Giacomo Saleri participated in the event. X-trial must have been a tough challenge for the wild cards, as in the past five rounds of X-Trial this year, there was no non nominated rider managed to proceed to the Semi Final, so as in Milan.

-- Semi Final --

Fujinami won the speed race agasint Gubian. Bou and Cabestany were other two who moved to the observed sections without a penalty point. Fujinami's regular and the direct rival, Fajardo lost the race, thus the Montesa rider started the lap with a point advantage.

Gubian was the only rider who made an error by dropping five points at the section1. The section2 was a tough challenge as there was a big log lying at right angles without effective run up area. Fujinami fell off following Gubian, who also drop five points. Even Bou and Raga later dropped five, but Fajardo and Cabestany were two succeeded. Fujinami talked with Fajardo after the event asking what kind of trick he used. The Spaniard said he too fell off, but the peg or other part of the bike was caught up on the torn surface of the log, thus he could continue to mark clean. Fajardo has struggled this season after changing the bike back to Beta and being out of luck too to miss the Final Lap appearance for the five rounds in a row. In Milan the luck seemed to be on his side. Bad news for the Japanese rider.

Fajardo, though, dropped two time penalty points at the section, to build two points advantage over Fujinami. The Japanese rider then needed to overcome three points at the rest of the two sections to finish better than Fajardo, because of the results of the Qualification Lap.

At the section3, everybody except Bou and Raga fived. Then at the final section of the lap, Fujinami watched Gubian dropping a full mark, then he started his ride to mark clean to conclude the lap. It was all depend on Fajardo if he would keep his composure or making bad mistakes to hand over the fourth place to Fujinami. The Spaniard did not waste his opportunity to mark clean with a single time penalty point to finish with nine points to shut the door in front of Fujinami.

At the following Final Lap, Bou and Raga showed a very hard fight. Bou made a sensational crash at the final section and he landed on the ground by his back. It was a hurtful mistake by Bou as he could not move nor breath for a while, and also dropping five points meant he needed to ride one more time for a tie breaker against Raga to decide their results.

It took some time till Bou stood up again. He bravely rode the tie breaker and rightly won the battle. It was the Spaniard's victory number six of the season, and he clinch the 2012 X-Trial Championship. He did not have to win the battle, though, as fifth was enough for Bou to wrap up the title. It was also his sixth Indoor title, taking every championship since he has joined Montesa.

Quote from Fujigas:

I am having a lot better season this year by proceeding to the Final Lap for the fifth consecutive times at Mallorca. Last year in comparison, I was able to ride the Final Lap only once. I got used to ride the FL, so it was disappointing to miss the chance today. There will be one more round before the series is over, and I will try to ride to be happy with the result.