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OCTOBER 29, 2007: Women’s motocross racing is exploding worldwide and much of that is due to New Zealand’s world No.1 Katherine Prumm.
With support from Kawasaki in New Zealand and the Molson Kawasaki GP team, the 19-year-old from South Auckland again rode a Kawasaki KX250F to wrap up her second consecutive Women’s World Cup title at the final round in the Netherlands in September.
She was soon afterwards asked for input as the world’s governing body for the sport, the FIM, and the company that promotes it worldwide, Youthstream, considered what direction to take the sport in 2008 and beyond.
Just last week, the FIM and Youthstream announced the women’s World Cup had been expanded from three to five rounds and had also been promoted to the status of World Championship, now to be called the FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship.
Next season will see the first edition of this brand new World Championship, which will have a total of five rounds, to be held in conjunction with five of next season’s MX1 and MX2 Grand Prix events.
Youthstream head Giuseppe Luongo said the women’s World Cup has increased in popularity and in its intensity and now has all the requirements to equal a World Championship.
Manufacturers such as KTM and Kawasaki are heavily involved in the series, with KTM supporting Germany’s Steffi Laier through KTM Germany, and Kawasaki supporting reigning champion Prumm and French rider Livia Lancelot, through the teams Molson and GPKR respectively.
The FIM Women’s Motocross World Cup started in 2005, and the first winner was Laier. She was then forced to hand the No.1 to New Zealand champion Prumm in 2006, and the Molson Kawasaki rider retained the crown also in 2007, with fellow Kawasaki fellow Lancelot eventually finishing runner-up.
“We thank FIM for upgrading the FIM Motocross Women World Cup to the FIM Motocross Women World Championship. Over the past three years the women have shown their high level as athletes, their professionalism and their strong competitiveness,” said Luongo, President of Youthstream.
“Our goal is to have five events in 2008 and to 8-10 events by 2010. We believe this will open a complete new market for motocross and we think this will bring our sport to many women’s television programs and magazines; it will also help to involve new sponsors linked to the women’s world; such as fashion and cosmetics.
“We want to thank the 2006 and 2007 FIM Women World Cup winner, Katherine Prumm, as a great ambassador for the future Women World Championship.
Prumm’s father, Erich, said Katherine was “ecstatic, as her initial goal was to represent New Zealand and become world champion by the age of 20, both of which she achieved two years prematurely.
“Her second goal was to promote the sport of women’s motocross and increase the number of competitors and also to transform the World Cup into a full blown Women’s World Championship, even though she often laughingly remarked that attainment of this latter goal would make holding onto the world championship a far harder task as an increase in the number of riders and elevation of the current series to a full world championship would increase both the number and depth of talent, as well as providing more exposure and value for money for sponsors.
“She emphasised this process would need to be a gradual and controlled procedure, as the downside of too rapid an expansion protocol would entail significantly elevated costs and may even scare off competitors, especially if held inter-continentally.
“Katherine has played a large role in getting this transformed into a championship and the FIM is grateful and thrilled by her tireless lobbying.”
Meanwhile, Prumm continues battling on the race track too. At the Taupo Labour Weekend Motocross Extravaganza, one of New Zealand’s largest one-off events, she took three holeshots and three easy wins.
She represented New Zealand at the Oceania Motocross on Sunday, again dominating her class, although Team New Zealand as a whole was unsuccessful in bringing home the Oceania title.
