Four for Court.
Courtney Duncan is back on top of the world.
The Dunedin rider went into the final round of the Women’s Motocross Championship in Turkey at the weekend with a handy 16-point lead.
Duncan extended that lead to 21 points with victory in race one.
She edged German rider Larissa Papenmeier by 10sec. But, more importantly, she finished ahead of Spain’s Daniela Guillen, who had to settle for third, and Dutch teenager Lotte van Drunen, who came in fifth.
That gave Duncan a bit more breathing room ahead of the final race.
That left Duncan on 270 points for the season, a whopping 30 points clear of Guillen.
The 27-year-old, originally from Palmerston, won three consecutive world titles from 2019-21.
She has basically been the fastest rider on the circuit since her debut season in 2016, but a run of bad luck conspired against her capturing the title earlier, and her 2022 campaign was derailed by injury.
Those earlier disappointments helped harden Duncan into the fierce competitor she is, and she told the Otago Daily Times in June she was extremely motivated to snag a fourth title this year.
"I look to what I want to achieve and I still feel like there is so much left to go.
"I feel like I’m starting to find some of the best form of my career right now."
She was right about that.
