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Contrary to the International Six Days’ Enduro and the Motocross of Nations, the Trial des Nations has a shorter history. The first Trial des Nations - a Trial event run for National teams - was held in 1984. In fact, the subject had been on the table of the FIM Trial Commission of that time since 1981, as the growth of Individual Trial had been significant at the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s. The introduction of a team competition would give an even more dynamic rhythm to this competition, less than 20 years after its introduction as a European Championship. In 1982, the Commission presented an official request to the Management Council to introduce the Trial des Nations as an official team competition, which was accepted for 1984 – the event would be held, as for the Motocross des Nations, at the end of the Individual Championship.
This first team Trial was held in Myslenice, near the city of Cracow in Poland, on 18 September 1984. The victory of this first event went to France, which made an excellent performance: at that time the country had several good riders such as Thierry Michaud and his brother Fred, Philippe Berlatier and Gilles Burgat. Each team was composed of four riders, the results of the best three counting towards the final classification. The French team with 285 points left second-placed Spain behind with 321 points, followed by Italy in third with 347 points.
The French team won again in 1985 and 1986 with the same riders except for Pascal Couturier who replaced Fred Michaud. But in 1987, the Italian team finally clinched the victory with Diego Bosis, Donato Miglio and Renato Chiaberto. The following year, France recovered first position, still led by Thierry Michaud. Spain finally secured its first victory in 1989 with Jordi Tarrès and his colleagues Amos Bilbao and Andreu Codina.
France fought back again in 1990 on home soil taking its fifth team victory. However, this would be the last for the French team (until now), as a country strong in Trial, which was already winning the Individual Series, would also take over the team contest as from 1991 without much opposition: it was Spain, of course, that won the contest six times in a row, until 1996, led by Jordi Tarrès, Marc Colomer and Andreu Codina.
Opposition to the domination of the Spaniardswould come from another country which was at the origin of Trial and had dominated Trial competitions for decades, but which had remained in the shadow for the last twenty years: Great Britain. There had been no individual title since Martin Lampkin’s in 1975, and no wins in the team contest. This changed abruptly in 1997 with the arrival of Martin Lampkin’s son Dougie at the top: he took his first individual title in 1997, followed a few days later by the first team title at the Trial des Nations held on the Isle of Man. Dougie Lampkin, Graham Jarvis, Steve Colley and Dan Clark clinched their first win on the rocky seaside north of Douglas obtaining 41 points while Spain, in second place, finished with 190!
Then both countries shared the titles for some time: Spain in 1998, 2000 and 2001 and Great Britain in 1999, 2002 and 2003. Then Spain’s domination returned with Adam Raga, Albert Cabestany and, of course, Toni Bou, who have won all the team competitions – and the individual ones as well – until now.
