In the trial teams’ tents, they already take it with humor, no other choice. “The only certainties in life are taxes, death, and Toni Bou’s victory in the trial world championship,” they recall around this time. And since 2007, it seems like an unmovable reality. A month away from turning 40, the prodigy from Piera has just rounded off another almost perfect campaign in the Netherlands to reach 40 world championship titles in the discipline, 20 indoors and another 20 outdoors. “Beastly! More titles than years, hahaha… the king,” laughs his friend, seven-time MotoGP champion Marc Márquez, with whom he shares training sessions and couple dinners.
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“This title is special, really. The first one is always different from the others, but 40 titles is a super round number and, besides, now in October I will turn 40, so it’s something spectacular,” says the Repsol Honda HRC rider in a phone conversation with EL PAÍS amid the celebration of his new crown. “Many years ago I already achieved everything I could achieve, but what makes the difference for me is that I can do what I like most in this life, enjoy this sport. For many years I haven’t fought for the 20th, 30th, or 40th title, but to achieve as much as possible, and wherever I finish, that will be my 100%,” he adds.
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The Catalan rider has only lost one event all season — the X-Trial on Reunion Island, in November 2025 — delaying once again the definitive breakthrough of the new talents in the category, led by fellow Spaniards Jaime Busto and Gabriel Marcelli, the latter his teammate. “Toni is one of the most disciplined people I know, he loves riding and training. Being so disciplined and the love he has for this sport are the keys to his success. He even practices on special holidays like New Year’s Eve,” confirms the 26-year-old Galician rider.
Bou’s record defies all logic when summarized in a couple of lines: 99 wins and 117 podiums in 129 appearances in X-Trial, the indoor discipline; 175 wins and 234 podiums in 288 appearances in TrialGP, the outdoor category. “We can’t think of anything, he seems invincible,” his team says when trying to recall any difficult moment of the season. In the outdoor championship, with one event still to be held in Pobladura de las Regueras, Castilla y León, he has accumulated 437 points out of 440 possible, while Busto (324) and Marcelli (317) still fight to be the best of the rest. Indoors, he finished the season with 175 out of 180 possible points, with more than two and a half events advantage over his teammate.
But in his tent, they overlook the issue of injuries. “This year I had another injury in my right shoulder, and I decided not to operate because the recovery would be between six and nine months. Now I have two torn tendons,” he says. Bou lost his subscapular tendon in 2016 and still hasn’t repaired it. The consequence of so much overload has been the rupture of the infraspinatus tendon in the same arm this season. “It’s much harder to win like this, and I’ll have to evaluate with my doctors where the shoulder really is, but the goal is to continue,” he points out. He has a contract until the end of 2027 and plans to fulfill it.
The trial tyrant believes it will be his body that finally brings him down, although he does not plan to retire as champion. About his only defeat of the season, his answer indicates what has brought him to these heights in the world of trial. “Even when I win, if I haven’t had a good race or I see that victory was about to slip away, I think about what I must improve. And there lies the key for any athlete, admitting that you haven’t done well no matter how much you have won, knowing that you can improve in every aspect. Trying to be better every day is part of the game,” he reflects.
Marcelli points out that Bou is a generous teammate, no hiding tricks or other tricks. “When I train with him, I always try to pick up things, details. I try to apply everything I see, because I ride the same bike, so I learn every day,” he says. But one thing is to see him and quite another to replicate him. “To beat him, you would need a lot of discipline, talent, and consistency, an almost perfect regularity. Toni is very good in races, but in a single one it’s not impossible to beat him. It is in a championship. He accumulates a lot of experience and handles very well the pressure that winning implies, and that’s why he is infallible,” his teammate concludes.
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