• Dominant home rule for Spanish men at 2026 FIM Trial des Nations
• Great Britain regains women’s crown at Arteixo after close competition
•  Norway wins International Trophy and Germany takes Challenge des Nations title

Staged at Arteixo in Spain, home advantage was of little consequence to the all-powerful Spanish trio of Toni Bou (Montesa), Gabriel Marcelli (Montesa) and Jaime Busto (Beta) who steered their nation to its thirty-second TdN win, but the battle for second was intense with Great Britain’s Harry and George Hemingway (Beta) and Harry Turner (Sherco) resisting strong challenges from Italy and France to claim silver for the second year in a row.

Last visited in 2023 when it was the venue for the opening round of the Hertz FIM Trial World Championship, the mostly natural sections were plotted in a wide, wooded valley with imposing granite rocks testing teams from the world’s leading Trial nations.

With a team’s best two scores counting on each of the fifteen sections, Spain and the French trio of Benoit Bincaz (Electric Motion), Alex Ferrer (Montesa) and Pablo Echene (Sherco) shared the lead after two sections with clean sheets, but that all changed at the third where the home side added five to its score, a total matched by Great Britain who moved into second on six.

A strong Italian side comprising Matteo Grattarola (Beta), Francesco Titli (Montesa) and Gianluca Tournour added seven here to take its total to eight to tie with France.

The next two sections were completed by all teams without any further marks, but as the hazards became increasingly tough and technical Spain began to quickly open up a sizeable advantage, especially on the challenging tenth where the home nation went clean, France picked up three, Great Britain needed six and Italy added ten.

With the harder sections positioned towards the end of the lap and rain starting to fall, Spain reached the halfway point in the competition on a total of eight, nineteen clear of Great Britain with France a further twelve adrift and Italy bringing up the rear on forty-five that included a single time penalty.

As the rain got heavier and grip became much harder to find on the smooth boulders, the Spanish team – featuring the top-three ranked riders in the world – tightened its grip on the title and its second lap total of nineteen, while a big increase on lap one, was easily good enough to ensure the TdN title was staying with Spain for yet another year.

“It has been very special for me to win here in Arteixo near my home in Galicia,” said Marcelli. “The whole team has worked so hard and given one-hundred per cent and we are all super-happy.”

With an average age of under twenty, Great Britain’s young guns showed real maturity to maintain second place with a lap two total of thirty-eight taking its total to sixty-five, twenty-nine clear of Italy who staged a fierce fightback to defeat France by a single mark.

Fielding the same team of Andrea Sofia Rabino (Beta), Alessia Bacchetta and Martina Gallieni (Sherco) that won the title for Italy for the first-ever time twelve months ago, the defending champions put up fierce opposition and the opening lap was a game of cat and mouse between the two nations with the Italians leading at the halfway mark on two, two ahead of Great Britain.

The Spanish team of two-time and reigning FIM Women’s Trial World Champion Berta Abellan (Scorpa), Abril Montserrat (Beta) and Daniela Hernando (Beta) sat a distant third at the end of the first lap on a total of twenty-one before a thirteen-mark gap to France’s two-rider team of Alicia Soyer and Margaux Pena (Electric Motion).

Lap two was incredibly close with Great Britain reducing the deficit to a single mark, but that all changed at sections twelve and thirteen where Italy added nine while Great Britain needed just a single mark to move into a commanding lead on a total of seven.

However, there were nervous scenes at the final hazard – a man-made section comprising concrete slabs and giant pipes along with boulders and tree stumps that was under cover so remained dry – where Great Britain’s seven-mark lead could easily have been cancelled out, but both nations remained clean and the title went to the British women for the third time in four years.

“Today has been amazing,” said Adshead. “We all made mistakes, but we worked hard as a team. It all came down to the last section and we did it.”

Spain added twenty-nine to its score on lap two to finish on a total of fifty, thirty-one clear of France, with the German team of Hannah Schneider (Beta), Sophia Reumschussel-Ter Jung (Montesa) and Jule Steinert completing the top five on a score of one-hundred-and-eleven.

On lap two the scores were reversed with Norway winning the tie-break to take the title for a fourth time.

“It’s been a great day, although it got way more exciting than we expected,” said Haga. “We had a five on the first lap that set us back and we were lucky it started to rain as that made it easier to make mistakes and we were able to fight back.”

The final step on the podium was filled by Japan’s Shinya Hirohata (Montesa), Jin Kuroyama (Sherco) and Yohito Takeda (Honda) on a total of fourteen, seven clear of defending champions the USA that fielded Alex Myers (Scorpa) alongside Alex Niederer (Beta) and Ryon Land (Sherco).

“It was hard work for Magdalena and me,” said Laure, “but together as a team we worked well and I’m delighted with how it went.”

The undisputed powerhouse of the modern sport, the Spanish men have won the competition on thirty-one occasions – compared to five times for France, four times for Great Britain and once for Italy – although they had to wait until the event’s sixth edition to take their first win.

This year’s Spanish men’s team – comprising Toni Bou (Montesa), Gabriel Marcelli (Montesa) and Jaime Busto (Beta) – is fully expected to emulate the achievement of Amós Bilbao, Andreu Codina, Gabino Renales and Jordi Tarrés who claimed their country’s very first TdN win in 1989 when the competition was held in Belgium.

A week earlier the FIM Trial World Championship had concluded with Tarrés taking the second of his seven solo titles and the Trial legend would add another six TdNs to his racing résumé before making way for the following generation of Spanish stars.

Fielding the same team in 1990, Spain lost the title to France before its fantastic foursome – with Marc Colomer replacing Cordina – bounced back in Großheubach in Germany in 1991 to reclaim the crown and they did it again in 1992 when the TdN made its historic and so far only visit to the USA, with Renales replaced by Joan Pons.

An unchanged team made it three TdN wins in a row in 1993 in Northern Ireland and there was more of the same in Andorra in 1994 with Angel Garcia taking Bilbao’s place in a triumphant Spanish side.

The competition travelled to Austria the following season where the quartet of Bilbao, Colomer, Pons and Tarrés took win number six to overtake France as the TdN’s most successful nation and Spain extended its win-streak in Sweden in 1996 when Marcel Justribó took Pons’ place on the team.

After its winning run was halted in 1997 on the Isle of Man by a team from Great Britain featuring Dougie Lampkin who had just won the first of his seven outdoor crowns, it was business as usual for a Spanish side in Italy in 1998 that featured Jordi Pascuet – who these days can be found overseeing sections in the Hertz FIM Trial World Championship – who replaced the recently retired Tarrés.

Following another loss to Great Britain in 1999, this time in Luxembourg, Spain celebrated the new Millennium by hosting the TdN for the first time – at Seva, around sixty-five kilometres north of Barcelona – and taking its total to nine wins with a team comprising Albert Cabestany and Marc Freixa alongside Colomer and Justribó.

Little did anyone know at the time, but the British victories in Portugal and Italy were the last time any national anthem other than the Marcha Real Española would be played to honour the winners of the Men’s competition…

With home advantage in Córdoba in 2004, Spain returned to the top with Cabestany, Freixa, Raga and Jeroni Fajardo and rest is history. Joined for the first time in Italy in 2005 by Toni Bou who was brought in to replace Fajardo, the Spanish have remained unbeaten ever since with Bou – who would go on to become the most successful rider in the sport’s history – and Raga forming the mainstay of the team with back-up from Cabestany and Fajardo every year until 2016 when teams were reduced to three riders and Fajardo stepped away from the competition.

Cabestany only lasted one more year before a young hotshot called Jaime Busto made his TdN debut, but in 2018 Fajardo was recalled to take Raga’s place as Spain maintained its stranglehold on the competition at Sokolov in the Czech Republic.

Raga was back in the team alongside Bou and Fajardo for a famous home win on the island of Ibiza in 2019 and, following a year’s hiatus because of the pandemic, when the TdN was restored to the calendar in 2021 Busto returned in place of Fajardo in time for Spain’s twenty-seventh victory.

An unchanged team won in 2022 in Italy and Gabriel Marcelli then replaced Raga in the 2023 squad in France, but the veteran was back alongside Bou and Marcelli in his final season in the top-flight when he signed off with his nineteenth TdN gold medal.

Last season and for this year’s competition, Spain will start with the world’s top three riders in Bou, Marcelli and Busto and as odds-on favourites to extend its winning run to twenty-two and its total of TdN titles to thirty-two.

So, who is the most successful individual rider in the Men’s TdN? Until 2022 that honour belonged to Raga with eighteen wins until Bou drew level in 2023. Both riders claimed their nineteenth wins in 2024 and Bou upped his total to twenty last season, a number that is almost certain to increase this weekend.

• 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).

• 2026 Hertz FIM Trial World Championship concludes with TrialGP of Spain
• Series signs off with dramatic showdown at Pobladura de las Regueras
• TrialGP Women, Trial2 and Trial2 Women titles to be decided

The Trial3 Junior title was also decided in the Netherlands at the start of the month with Harison Skelton (Scorpa) from Great Britain claiming the crown, although the class for the series’ youngest riders follows a shorter calendar and was never scheduled to compete in Spain.

Last visited in 2024 when it hosted the FIM Trial des Nations, the purpose-built Circuito Permanente de Trial is sure to present a fitting challenge to end the series with its mix of natural and manmade sections stretching riders’ skills to the limit.

With Spanish superstar Bou now a twenty-time champion, the battle for the remaining medals has boiled down to a two-rider fight between Jaime Busto (Beta) and Gabriel Marcelli (Montesa) with just seven points separating the pair. At twenty-eight years old – two years Marcelli’s senior – Busto has experience on his side and with the pair both very evenly matched the fight for silver is not expected to be decided before the final race of the season.

His slim advantage after beating Marcelli across all four races staged last time out in Zelhem to overturn an eight-point deficit – and inflict Bou’s sole race defeat of the season – means Busto has momentum behind him, but Marcelli is a forceful rider who will not give up the fight for second place as he bids to add to the silver medal he won in 2024.

Currently a comfortable fourth and on course to match his career-best finishes in the premier class achieved between 2021-2023 and again last season, Matteo Grattarola (Beta) could still move into the medal positions, although with a twenty-eight-point gap to Marcelli, the thirty-eight-year-old Italian knows this is unlikely.

Riding the sole electric bike in the field, Miquel Gelabert (Honda) is a clear fifth ahead of British class newcomer Harry Hemingway (Beta) – who in turn leads his compatriot Jack Peace (Sherco) by just twelve points – and with the Spaniard’s younger brother, Aniol, who was ranked sixth in 2025 also in action, there is plenty to keep the fans on their toes.

Abellan has been soaking up the pressure all year to hold an eleven-point lead heading into the series decider, but after being defeated by the twenty-year-old last time out in Great Britain the Spaniard knows she will have to bring her A game this weekend and will be hoping to draw inspiration from the passionate home fans who are sure to be urging her through every section.

Behind them the battle for bronze is most likely to be between Italy’s Alessia Bacchetta – who was second on both days at the series opener in Japan in May – and Alice Minta (Beta) from Great Britain with just four points separating the pair, although French rider Alycia Soyer is only another thirteen behind.