Spain's Toni Bou will again be the man to beat in the forthcoming X-Trial World Championship season
Toni Bou will chase a twelfth X-Trial World Championship title in a season what promises to be an exciting and attractive new era for the sport in the hands of 2Play.
The Repsol Honda rider is the most successful in the sport's history, having taken every title available since his first in 2007. It took him just three seasons to make it to the top step of the Championship podium, after a debut season in 2005 in which he finished seventh in the world and Spanish Championship runner-up. The following year he took third, taking his first gold medal in the X-Trial of Nations. Since then he has reigned on the world stage with an iron fist.
Bou's statistics are overwhelming: he has made 75 World Championship appearances including a 2005 debut in Toulouse in which he finished fourth. Since then, he has made it onto the podium on a staggering 64 occasions, with 52 victories, 9 runner-up finishes and three third place returns. On just eleven occasions has the Spaniard finished off the podium, his first top-three finish taken at just 18 years of age in Milan, when he finished behind Adam Raga.
In eleven seasons as World Champion, only Raga and his fellow countryman Albert Cabestany have been able to beat him. And in five of his Championship-winning seasons, he has managed a maximum score.
All of this makes Toni Bou the man to beat in the 2018 X-Trial World Championship.