The controversy opens up again after the name of the riders who will make up the fixed places of the 2019 X-Trial World Championship was known.
If last year
Albert Cabestany
was left out of the assigned fixed places and even as a wild card driver, this year the one who has been left without a bib is Jeroni Fajardo.
In the case of Cabestany it shocked us all, at least there was a justification, and that is that in 2017 he did not finish in the top three of the X-Trial World Championship or in the top six of the Outdoor World Championship.
Jeroni Fajardo
, on the other hand, is the current runner-up in the TrialGP world championship and probably the revelation rider of the entire 2018 season in terms of results, progression and consistency. In the last edition of the X-Trial World Championship he was sixth. The fact of being left out of this championship on a regular basis is an important break for the Girona rider, who unless invited as a wild-card, would have to wait until May to resume his world championship activity.
HOW ARE FIXED X-TRIAL RIDERS CHOSEN?
The criteria defined by the FIM EN 2019 for naming the five Permanent Riders of the season states that the first three places will correspond to the top three classified from the previous season. They are joined by two more riders who must meet the condition of having participated in any Trial World Championship in the previous year; but the fourth must have a nationality other than the first three, and the fifth must be under 25 years of age.
In the end, we will have a representation of five brands: Montesa, TRRS, Gas Gas, Sherco and Scorpa.
HOW WERE THEY TRADITIONALLY CHOSEN?
From practically its origins, the fixed riders of the Indoor Trial World Championship were chosen as follows: the three best in the Indoor World Championship and the three best in the Outdoor World Championship. If they coincided, the next classified of the Outdoor were chosen, in such a way that the drivers who were the best in the world always disputed the championship.
