Clear favorites at the start of the day, Spain’s dominant men’s team followed the formbook to take top honors at the 2026 FIM Trial des Nations (TdN) for the 22nd consecutive time while Great Britain regained the Women’s title, Norway topped the International Trophy, and Germany ran out winners of the Challenge des Nations competition.
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 32nd 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 hosted 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 that tested teams from the world’s leading Trial nations.
With a team’s best two scores counting on each of the 15 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 reach eight and 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 10th, where the home nation went clean, France picked up three, Great Britain needed six and Italy added 10.
With the harder sections toward the end of the lap and rain starting to fall, Spain reached the halfway point on a total of eight, 19 clear of Great Britain, with France a further 12 adrift and Italy bringing up the rear on 45, including 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 19, 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 100 percent and we are all super-happy.”
The competition in the second-tier International Trophy was incredibly close all day, with the German team of Paul Reumschussel (Montesa), Jonathan Heidel (Beta) and Rodney Bereiter (Beta) completing the opening lap for the loss of just one mark to lead Norway’s Sondre Haga, Jarand-matias Vold Gunvaldsen and Jone Sandvik (Sherco) by four at the halfway point.
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 14, seven clear of defending champions the USA that fielded Alex Myers (Scorpa) alongside Alex Niederer (Beta) and Ryon Land (Sherco).
Now in its fifth season, the Challenge des Nations category for two-rider, mixed-gender teams was won by the German team of Marco Laure (Beta) and Magdalena Hubner (Sherco) on a total of 21, putting them seven clear of Spain’s Oriol Garcia (Sherco) and Queralt Fontdevila (Beta), with the Czech pairing of Tadeas Mikunda (Electric Motion) and Petra Budinova third on 42.
“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.”CN
2026 Trial of Nations Results
TRIAL DES NATIONS
- Spain (27)
- Great Britain (65)
- Italy (94)
- France (95)
INTERNATIONAL (Top 5)
- Norway (6)
- Germany (6)
- Japan (14)
- USA (21)
- Sweden (57)
