Spain plays host to 2026 FIM Trial des Nations

• Home team start favourites to retain Men’s FIM Trial des Nations title
• Italians prepare to defend Women’s Trial des Nations crown
• Too close to call in International Trophy and Challenge des Nations classes

Fielding last year’s winning Men’s team comprising Toni Bou (Montesa), Jaime Busto (Beta) and Gabriel Marcelli (Montesa), Spain will be bidding for its thirty-second TdN title and its twenty-second in a row as it stages the annual competition to determine the world’s leading Trial nation for the seventh time.

Given these impressive statistics, it should come as no surprise to learn that the Spanish men have never lost a TdN on home soil and, what is more, the last time the world’s best riders visited Arteixo in the Galicia region – for the opening round of the 2023 Hertz FIM Trial World Championship – Spanish riders, including all three 2026 team members, filled the top-five positions on both days.

Born and bred in Galicia, Marcelli knows the area better than most and cannot wait to put on the red and yellow colours of his nation to compete in front of his home fans.

“It is always special to compete in Galicia,” said Marcelli. “It’s a beautiful part of the country and the terrain is perfect for Trial. Racing in my home region and representing my country makes it even more meaningful so I am looking forward to the weekend.”

In Italy in 2025 it was Great Britain that claimed silver, forty-nine marks behind Spain and six ahead of Italy and this time around brothers Harry and George Hemingway (Beta) are joined by Harry Turner (Sherco) who replaces Jack Peace in the side.

With an average age under twenty, it is a very youthful team, but all three riders have performed exceptionally well this year in the Hertz FIM Trial World Championship with Harry Hemingway scoring three overall podium finishes from the concluding five days of competition in his first season in TrialGP, George Hemingway ending the Trial2 series as vice-champion and Turner taking two overall wins in Trial2.

Once again led by evergreen thirty-eight-year-old Matteo Grattarola (Beta), the Italian trio is completed by eighteen-year-old Francesco Titli (Montesa) – who returns for the second successive season – and thirty-three-year-old Gianluca Tournour who takes the place of Lorenzo Gandola.

Grattarola has enjoyed a fantastic year in TrialGP to finish fourth for the second season in a row while Titli has climbed eight places in Trial2 in 2026, scoring two runner-up positions and one victory on his way to sixth in the closely-contested class. Tournour has been less active over recent years with his last full season in Trial2 coming in 2023 when he ended the year ranked eleventh after finishing sixth the previous season.

The French effort is led by thirty-year-old Benoit Bincaz (Electric Motion) with support from thirty-six-year-old Alex Ferrer – a late replacement for the injured Hugo Dufrese – and seventeen-year-old Pablo Echene (Sherco).

Despite missing the opening round of the Hertz FIM Trial World Championship, Bincaz finished the season ranked fifth in Trial2 with six podium finishes including two victories while Ferrer – who has been relatively inactive over recent seasons – is a hugely experienced rider who made his TrialGP debut in 2012 and achieved his highest ranking of seventh in 2015.

With a nation’s best two scores in each section counting towards its total, Echene’s form could be crucial to the French effort and after finishing the season ranked tenth in Trial2 he will be feeling the pressure as he prepares to make his TdN debut.

The battle at the front is expected to be between twenty-six-year-old Abellan and twenty-year-old Rabino – this year’s vice-champion – but twenty-one-year-old Bacchetta, who was fourth in TrialGP Women this season, could play a pivotal role. At thirty-two years old, Gallieni is the most senior member of the Italian women’s team with a highest TrialGP Women ranking of eighth – achieved in 2022 – and has posted four top-ten finishes this season from the six days she has contested.

By contrast, the remaining two Spanish riders’ experience has come in Trial2 Women where Montserrat won this year’s title with Hernando second, although it remains to be seen how they perform against the elite TrialGP Women competitors.

Bronze medallists twelve months ago, Great Britain has tempted its ten-time TrialGP Women champion Emma Bristow (Sherco) out of retirement to lead Alice Minta (Beta) and Kaytlyn Adshead into battle.

While thirty-five-year-old Bristow has not turned a wheel in top-flight competition since helping her nation – alongside Minta and Adshead – win the TdN title in 2024, twenty-two-year-old Minta has been in the form of her life in TrialGP Women this season to finish the year in a career-best third, three places above twenty-one-year-old Adshead.

Before Italy’s victory last season, the last time a country other than Spain or Great Britain won the TdN Women title was in 2005 when Germany claimed victory, but with strong teams from France – led by fifth-ranked TrialGP Women rider Alicia Soyer – as well as Germany, the USA, Andorra and Poland entered, this year’s medals will be fiercely contested.

Having lost silver to Japan last year on a tie-break, Germany’s Paul Reumschüssel (Montesa), Jonathan Heidel (Beta) and Rodney Bereiter (Beta) have a point to prove, but with a healthy entry of sixteen countries from four continents in action the eventual medal positions are by no means clear-cut.

Now in its fifth season, the Challenge des Nation category is for two-rider, mixed-gender teams and Norway have put the defence of the title in the hands of Patrick Bjørnland Larsen (Scorpa) and Wilde Moi (Beta), but with eleven nations entered and strong teams from, in particular, Great Britain, Italy and Germany, this is another category that is simply too close to call.

The riding action from Arteixo gets under way with official TdN Practice running from 12:30-14:30 on Saturday (26 September) followed by the Opening Ceremony at 18:00 before the competition commences at 08:30 the following day (all local times).