The September 16 round of the 2024 FIM Motocross World Championship (MXGP) in China will be strengthened by the presence of six wildcards from the Australian ProMX ranks.
Nathan Crawford, Todd Waters, Kirk Gibbs, Brodie Connolly, Jayce Cosford and Byron Dennis have accepted the challenge to compete in the Shanghai-based event as the championship returns to the world’s second most populous nation for the first time since 2019 and just a year before MXGP comes back to Australia.
The riders will participate in the classes that align with their ProMX campaigns, which means that MX1 trio Crawford, Gibbs and Waters – who currently fill positions 3-5 – will tough it out in the MXGP category and the remainder in the MX2 class.
The MXGP of China will be number 19 of 20 in a huge 2024 calendar, with the season-ending at Cozar in Spain on September 25.
And then, in 2025, the frenzy and adrenalin-fuelled excitement of MXGP returns Down Under for the first time in 24 years. The MXGP of Australia – Darwin round will be held in September 2025 and promoted by the Northern Territory Major Events Company, featuring the MXGP and MX2 classes as well as the FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship and a national support class.
For the five Australians and one New Zealander (Connolly), the MXGP of China will certainly provide a taste of the intensity and degree of difficulty required to make an impact at the world championship level, with big names such as Tim Gajser, Jorde Prado, Jeffrey Herlings and Kay de Wolf awaiting them on the 1.620km Shanghai track.
Gajser is marching towards a fifth MXGP title, and 19-year-old de Wolf has a handy buffer in the MX2 class with six rounds remaining.
Of the six riders heading to China, former Motocross of Nations representatives Waters and Gibbs are the only ones with previous MXGP experience. Waters was ninth in the 2015 championship and, after winning the ProMX title in 2015, Gibbs then joined Waters at the season-ending MXGP round in America.
