Nikita Smith – A future champion?

Although only recently having turned sixteen years old, Nikita Smith – Gas Gas has already made her presence felt in the FIM Women’s Trial World Championship. The young British female rider is now a familiar face as part of the series having made her debut in Germany back in 20111 aged just thirteen years and eleven months. The ever-smiling teenager has come along way since she finished down in twenty-fifth place at Grossheubach at her maiden Trial Grand Prix. Later the same season Smith was to start to show her true potential as she then placed eleventh in the Czech Republic to claim her first ever points in the FIM Women’s Trial World Championship having just celebrated her fourteenth birthday. Five further solid points scoring rides during the 2012 campaign, when her best result was eighth, was to put Nikita in eleventh spot in the overall rankings come the close of last season. After a disappointing opening day to the 2013 FIM Women’s Trial World Championship, when she only collected a single point for fifteenth place, Smith bounced back brilliantly the following day to record a career best sixth place in Andorra. It is just this kind of performance at such a young age and against far more experienced riders that is suggesting that Nikita could just be a future champion in the making. Time will tell if Smith can make it to the top.