Luke Styke: Australia’s First Dual International

In Australia, we (and by “we”, I mean the moto industry and media and general public) don’t always do a great job of acknowledging and celebrating our Pro riders’ milestones (unlike our friends in America, who love to spruik a sporting stat or three!). But it would be remiss of us not to shine a spotlight on the recent achievements of Yamaha Active8 Yamalube Off-Road Racing Team’s Lyke Styke. As we highlighted in this piece few weeks back, Styke recently became the first Australian ever to win a national motocross, supercross and enduro title. And earlier this week, when Motorcycling Australia (MA) announced the Australian team line-up for the 2019 ISDE, to be held in Portugal in November, it became apparent that Styke had notched up another notable milestone: he became the first Australian to represent his country at the Motocross of Nations and the ISDE.

“It’s great to be given the opportunity to represent Australia on our ISDE team this year,” Styke told Transmoto. “As I mentioned in that interview we did a few weeks back, being the first Australian to represent my country at both international events has been a personal goal for me this year, so it’s cool to think I’ll join an elite list of riders from other countries who’ve done that. Although, I haven’t actually done it yet, so maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself [laughs]. I think we’re over in Portugal for almost three weeks all up, so I’m really looking forward to the whole experience. I feel like I’m up for the challenge, and I’ll be doing everything I can – along with my teammates, Daniel Milner, Daniel Sanders and Josh Green – to defend Australia’s World Trophy win in 2018,” the 27-year-old Aussie went on to say.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

CORRECTION…

Since publishing this article, it has come to our attention that Luke Styke was in fact the second Aussie to represent the nation’s ISDE and MXoN teams, 27 years after David Armstrong created history by doing so in 1992. We’ve apologised to Armstrong for the oversight. And to his credit, Dave was good-humoured about it.
So, for the record, David Armstrong was selected for Australia’s MX of Nations team three times (in 1984, 1986 and 1987) and on Australia’s ISDE team in 1992, when the Six-Day was first staged in Australia.
As a matter of interest, Dave Armstrong was also the first guy to win the Finke Desert Race on debut (in 1987); a feat that wasn’t repeated until Toby Price – who was born in 1987 – won Finke on debut in 2010.
What was it we were saying about Australians not always doing a great job of acknowledging and celebrating our Pro riders’ milestones? This factual faux pas suggests we don’t always do a good job with our background research, either!