Courtney Duncan

FOUR STAR DUNCAN!

With her bid to win four successive FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship titles ending prematurely last season thanks to a broken collarbone that forced her to sit out two rounds, New Zealand’s Courtney Duncan – Kawasaki started 2023 with a point to prove.

The twenty-seven-year-old from New Zealand’s South Island had returned with back-to-back wins in 2022 following her injury-enforced lay-off and she kicked off her 2023 campaign at Riola Sardo on the Italian island of Sardinia at the end of March with third overall.

Duncan then returned to the top spot the following month at Frauenfeld in Switzerland where she backed up a win in the opening moto with second in race two to take the overall victory.

Trailing Lotte Van Drunen – Kawasaki from the Netherlands by a single point in the championship heading into round three in Spain at the beginning of May, Duncan’s dynamite double win at intu Xanadú - Arroyomolinos coincided with a bad day at the office for the Dutch rider which allowed the Kiwi to move into a ten-point lead as the series hit the halfway mark.

The fabled French track at Villars Sous Ecot was the next stop on the title trail and Duncan raced to her second double win in a row to move into a twenty-point championship lead with just the sand of Arnhem in the Netherlands and the hard-pack of Afyonkarahisar in Turkiye left on the calendar.

Duncan could not maintain her winning-streak at the Dutch round in August and her four-three finishes saw her miss the overall podium for the first time in 2023, although a win and a second-placed finish at the MXGP of Turkiye at the start of September was good enough to seal the deal.

PALMARES

FIM Women’s Motocross World Champion: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023

THREE IN A ROW! 

Courtney Duncan (Bike It MTX Kawasaki) made it a hat-trick of WMX titles this season and in complete contrast to last year’s dramatic conclusion when she claimed the crown only on a tie-break, this time around she ran out winner by a comfortable thirty-one points. 

That is not to say the twenty-five-year-old from New Zealand’s South Island had it easy and for the third season in a row she was pushed hard by Dutch racer Nancy van de Ven (Yamaha), but her incredible consistency – she only finished off the podium once in twelve motos – paid dividends.  

Duncan got her campaign off to the best possible start at the series opener – the MXGP of Czech Republic – at the notoriously tough Loket circuit at the end of July where she raced to a double win to claim an immediate advantage.  

A week later in the deep sand of Lommel she faltered, finishing the day in fifth and handing her championship lead to Shana van der Vlist (KTM) from Holland. 

However, true champions feed off adversity and the Kiwi quickly regrouped and staged a ferocious fightback at the MXGP of Turkey – held at Afyonkarahisar at the start of September – where she backed up a second-placed finish in the first moto with victory in race two to take the overall and move into a fifteen-point lead. 

A pair of runner-up finishes at the MXGP of Afyon ensured she stayed at the top of the table before overall victory with a two-one card in mid-October at the MXGP of Spain set her up for her third consecutive title. 

The showdown was at the MXGP of Trentino and a third in the first moto was good enough for the championship before she signed off with a win in race two.

QUEEN DUNCAN DOUBLES UP 

Courtney Duncan (DRT Kawasaki) retained her FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship title this season, although the twenty-four-year-old from New Zealand’s South Island had to fight every step of the way. 

Following three years of trying – and three years of falling just short – Duncan finally claimed the crown in 2019 by a comfortable margin from Nancy van de Ven, however in 2020 the Dutch racer took her all the way to the final moto of the season and even then it needed a tie-break to decide the destination of the crown. 

Duncan came out swinging at the opening round – the MXGP of Great Britain – at Matterley Basin at the beginning of March and firmly threw down the gauntlet with a double win as van de Ven finished off the podium. A week later at the MXGP of The Netherlands it was Larissa Papenmeier (Yamaha) who won as van de Ven pulled back two points on Duncan in the deep Valkenswaard sand. 

After winning the opening race at round three – the MXGP of Lombardia – a disastrous no-score in the second moto dropped Duncan to fourth in the championship as Papenmeier and van de Ven set the pace. Duncan then tied with van de Ven at round four, taking the overall with 2-1 scores, but she trailed her rival by four points heading into the decider. 

The MXGP of Trentino on the last day of October provided the perfect setting for the showdown. Duncan won the first race with van de Ven fifth to take a five-point lead into the final moto of the season which van de Ven won, though Duncan’s thrilling third was just good enough for the title. 

KIWI COURTNEY’S TURKISH DELIGHT 

New Zealand’s Courtney Duncan (Kawasaki) finally claimed the FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship in 2019, after three years of near misses since bursting onto the scene as a race-winning rookie in 2016. Duncan stunned the motocross world when she won both motos on her professional debut in Qatar, but after two further wins, a freak accident ruled her out of two rounds of that season and meant she finished third, despite winning more races than any other rider. 

Courtney then missed the title by just two points in 2017, before injuring herself again in 2018 whilst holding a twenty-one point lead with two rounds to go. However, a change of manufacturer heralded a change of fortune in 2019. After taking victory in the opening moto of the season at Valkenswaard, The Netherlands, Duncan slipped to fourth in the second moto and allowed Dutch rider Nancy van der Ven (Yamaha) to claim top spot, but that would prove to be the only moment she would let her guard slip all season. 

Consecutive doubles in Portugal, Czech Republic and Italy set up a title shot at the final round in Turkey, where she wasted no time in wrapping things up with a dominant twelve-second victory in the first moto. Duncan signed-off her 2019 assault with a second race win, making it nine from ten for the season, as she followed in the footsteps of fellow Kiwi Katherine Oberlin-Brown (nee Prumm), who won the Women’s World Cup in 2006 and 2007, before the class was elevated to FIM World Motocross Championship status in 2008.