Cairoli - The Fighter

Bruised and battered from last weekend’s Grand Prix of Portugal, nine-time world motocross champion Antonio Cairoli will be seething. He knows that this 2018 GP season might be his toughest to date. He knows that speed wise the young lion Jeffrey Herlings might have his number, but if there is one thing about Antonio Cairoli, it is that he is a fighter, and the word, give up, or quit, isn’t in his vocabulary.

Time and time again 222 has turned up, and given his all, fought against the odds of injury in 2015 and 2016, and returned in 2017 as a different rider. Better than that young kid who won his first world motocross championship in 2005, back when he was just 19 years old, better than the rider who dominated the world in 2012, winning his sixth world championship and dominated the Americans and Herlings at Lommel with 1-1 results, and in my opinion the 2018 version of AC is better than the 2017 version.

If you ask Antonio Cairoli, he can still get better, can still find some extra speed and can 100% be a 10 times world motocross champion, and I for one, don’t doubt his desire and destination in the motocross history books.

While we all marvel at the performances of Jeffrey Herlings in 2018, and for that matter also at the end of 2017, it might be reminded, that defending MXGP champion Antonio Cairoli is still, very much in the mix. The Sicilian legend is just 16 points behind Herlings in the championship points, and as we have all seen in the past, Cairoli knows how to win world championships, even when it seems his chances are slim.

He has handled the likes of Clement Desalle and Gautier Paulin in the past, two riders who have been at the very top of our sport for more than a decade. Paulin a multiple MXoN moto winner, and Desalle with a stack of GP victories to his name.

While it might seem that Herlings is presently the man to beat, you can be sure Cairoli is working harder than ever to find a way to match the Dutchman. If you look at how far Cairoli is beating everyone, apart from Herlings, then it is clear he has already picked up his pace from 2017, a season he himself admitted was Antonio Cairoli at his very best.

I have written the Italian off before, and for sure I won’t be doing that again, despite being a massive Jeffrey Herlings fan.

I still remember 2011, and the year it looked like finally, Desalle had found the momentum to uncrown Cairoli. The Belgian started the season with victory in Bulgaria, going 2-1 and Cairoli struggled. Round after round Desalle reeled off GP wins, in America going 1-1, and Portugal also 1-1, but Cairoli wasn’t going away, and after that round in Portugal, Cairoli fought back, winning in Spain, and closing the points lead of Desalle to a single point.

Cairoli would score GP wins in Latvia (1-1), Belgium (1-1), before Desalle would win in Czech Republic (2-1), but with the weight of the world on his shoulder and the points race starting to favour the Italian, Desalle excited the race and season with an injury.

A round later in England, Cairoli would win again, with a 3-1 GP victory, and then a round later in Gaildorf, Germany, he was crowned world motocross champion for the fifth time in his career, and equal the tally of motocross legends, Roger De Coster, Georges Jobe, Joel Smets and Eric Geboers.

Great champions usually find that extra bit of speed, that extra bit of motivation, and that extra bit of dedication to once again rise from the ashes of defeat. Antonio Cairoli, a rider many feel is the greatest Grand Prix rider of all time, shouldn’t be written off, and you do so at your own peril.

2018 is going to be tough, tougher than ever, but if you had to bet your house on Antonio Cairoli coming through, then it isn't a bad bet to make.

Ray Archer images