Courtney Duncan has had a difficult start to the FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship in 2022

The FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship, inaugurated in 2005, is a feeder series to the FIM Motocross World Championship.

For the first time in seven years, Courtney Duncan, the triple World Women’s Motocross (WMX) Champion, has not won a race at the FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship, due to a less than the optimal build-up.

Courtney made a strong start to her 2022 season in the MXGP of Lombardia, taking the holeshot in race one and leading for the first several laps. Dutch rider Lynn Valk was able to slink around Duncan after landing negligibly wide on a jump. After which, Nancy Van De Ven of the Netherlands managed to pass Duncan for second place, when the race continued on the sand at the Mantova track. Mantova track was Duncan’s least favourite surface. Explaining the situation, Duncan said, “The whole build-up wasn’t great with only arriving in Europe this week and trying to acclimatize. I hadn’t ridden my KX250 race bike and went straight into the sand. All that puts you on the back foot and clearly, it showed this weekend. I just wasn’t myself.”

Disappointed with her chance to grab the first position, Courtney said, “It was a difficult weekend to say the least. A P3 and P9 for sixth overall is not how you want to start the championship.”

Duncan has proven that she has what it takes to climb her way back to the top. She put in three years of hard work with Kawasaki’s Bike It Dixon Racing Team (DRT) before winning her first championship trophy in 2019, and she has her sights set on a fourth consecutive title after five more WMX events in September.

With a third and ninth-place finish in the MXGP of Lombardia in Italy, her pursuit for a fourth consecutive world title has gotten off to a difficult start, even by her own excessively high standards.

Following a rocky start to her 2022 season, the Kiwi motocross sensation’s incredible first-up winning record in the World Women’s Motocross (WMX) Championship has come to an end. However, she remains upbeat and has already pledged to fight her way back into title contention.

Since joining the series in 2016, Duncan, the three-time defending champion, has won at least one race on the opening weekend.

Duncan’s aggregate scores put her in sixth place with 32 points, 15 points behind round winners and championship leaders Nancy van de Ven and Lynn Valk – both from the Netherlands – (47 points), but the Kiwi star isn’t about to give up her title easily.