S
o comprehensive was New Zealander
Courtney Duncan’s Women’s Motocross World
Championships (WMX) campaign this season that
she wrapped up the five-round series with a race to
spare, completing a 1-1 sweep of the final round in
Turkey on September 8-9.
It was a year of redemption and resurrection for the
23-year-old Duncan, the Otago rider celebrating her
Kawasaki debut this season by finally achieving her
lifelong dream.
Destined never to race a GP on home soil and,
in fact, she was always going to have to travel the
farthest to compete on this world stage, Duncan had
to endure three frustrating seasons of “so close, but
yet so far” before her breakthrough success this year.
But she proved again that Kiwis can fly, following in
the wheel tracks of fellow New Zealand motocross
riders who became world champions – New
Plymouth’s Shayne King (1996 500cc motocross
world champion), Taupo’s Ben Townley (2004 MX2
world champion), Katherine Prumm (Women’s
world cup champion in 2006 and 2007), Pukekohe’s
Tony Cooksley (2007 Veterans’ world champion)
and Hawera’s Daryl Hurley (2018 Veterans’ world
champion).
Duncan joined the British-based DRT Kawasaki this
season and tasted immediate success, finishing 14th
and first at the opening WMX GP at Valkenswaard, in
The Netherlands, in April – fourth overall for the GP –
in what would actually turn out to be her worst score
of the season.
She won every race after that.
KIWI RIDER 27