C
an 2019 finally be the breakthrough year
for New Zealand’s Courtney Duncan? After
three consecutive seasons of narrowly
missing out, this year’s world championship
campaign may finally bear fruit for the 23-year-
old international motocross star from Otago.
She took two more giant strides towards
winning the 2019 Women’s Motocross World
Championships (WMX), dominating in the Czech
Republic on the weekend of July 27-28, the third
round of five in the series.
Duncan flew in from her hometown of
Palmerston, near Dunedin, to blitz the qualifying
session at the Czech Grand Prix at Loket,
registering a time two seconds quicker than the
next best WMX rider at the high-profile event.
She then scored back-to-back wins on the hard-
packed track, giving her an impressive tally of five
race wins from six starts in the series thus far.
Racing this year for the first time for the British-
based Bike It DRT Kawasaki Racing Team, the
flying Kiwi is now 14 points in front of her Dutch
arch rival Nancy Van De Ven (Yamaha) with
just two rounds (four races, two at each event)
remaining – at Imola, in Italy, on August 17-18
and at Afyon, in Turkey, on September 7-8.
Duncan crossed the finish line a massive 36
seconds ahead of Van De Ven in race one in the
Czech Republic and then repeated the dose,
winning race two by the exact same margin, on
this occasion crossing the line ahead of German
rider Larissa Papenmeier (Yamaha).
KIWI RIDER 99