CAN AUSTRALIA WIN ITS THIRD ISDE IN 2025?

If you speak with anyone involved with Team Australia’s International Six-Days Enduro (ISDE) effort this year, you’ll quickly pick up on the fact there’s a real sense of renewed enthusiasm about the entire Aussie campaign – from the Senior, Junior and Women’s representative teams, right through to the club teams and the support crew, who are an integral part of any ISDE (which, by the way, has been rebranded this year – its 99^th running – as the “6Days FIM Enduro of Nations”).

The official ISDE banner from the 1995 ISDE (signed by the Aussie Junior team riders) somehow came into the possession of Australia’s Geoff Ballard. It’s just one of many incredible items up for grabs at the 2025 ISDE Fundraiser in Victoria on August 7.

Thanks in part to Motorcycling Australia’s (MA) initiative of appointing a dedicated 6-Days Management Group, there’s a unmistakable spring in the green-and-gold step for the August 24-29 event in Bergamo, Italy, with MA’s funding for the representative teams being supplemented by an ISDE fundraiser on August 7. Plus, this newfound enthusiasm also seems to have reminded Aussies that there’s a pathway for getting involved with the ISDE … and that the annual ‘Olympics of Motorcycling’, as its often referred to, remains the sport’s pinnacle for any enduro racer.

But can Team Australia claim its third ISDE World Trophy crown win this year in Italy? Well, it just so happens that 2025 is the 30-year and 10-year anniversary, respectively, of Australia’s first ever Junior Trophy Team and Word Trophy Team wins, so another victory (or two) in 2025 has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? We reckon we’ve got the team riders to get the job done in Italy, too!

In 1995, our Junior Trophy Team (Jamie Cunningham, Shawn Reed, Shane Watts and Ian Cunningham, pictured with Team Manager Peter Dooley) claimed Australia’s first ever ISDE victory.

Speaking of those historic first Team Australia wins – the Junior Trophy in 1995 and the World Trophy in 2015 – let’s check out a few images from those memorable years. And let’s revisit that euphoric, history-making 2015 ISDE in Slovakia, when the Aussies not only clinched their first ever Senior World Trophy team win, but also clean-swept the Junior and Women’s classes. This Editorial article first appeared in Issue #54 (Jan-Feb, 2016) of Transmoto Dirt Bike Magazine…

THE 2015 ISDE – DECIDED BY A COURT OF LAW!

If you want to dive deeper and revisit all the anguish, angst and politics of that historic Team Australia win in 2015 (decided months later after an FIM legal hearing), here’s the feature article about the 2015 ISDE, which appeared in Issue #53 (Nov-Dec, 2015) of Transmoto Dirt Bike Magazine…