THE world stage beckons for Great Western\u2019s Andrew Wilksch, who has been selected to represent Australia in the planet\u2019s biggest off-road motorcycle competition.<\/p>\n
Wilksch, along with nine others, will head to France this August to compete in the 2022 International Six Day Enduro against the world\u2019s best enduro riders.<\/p>\n
Racing between five-and-six hours over six days is the odyssey which awaits Wilksch, who will head to the tournament for the second time in his career; five years after making his debut with the national team in Chile.<\/p>\n
With the heartbreak of missing selection for the event in 2019 spurring him on, Wilksch says it is a \u201cmassive honour\u201d to be selected to represent Australia on the global stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone that\u2019s involved in sport wants to represent their country and it\u2019s no different for us. This is the pinnacle to put your name on the map against the world\u2019s best,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Australia we have a top 20 that\u2019s really competitive, but on that world stage you\u2019d have a top 40 that is really competitive and the top 20 is level beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tournament is divided into three categories: men\u2019s, junior and women\u2019s, with each country taking its best ten riders.<\/p>\n
In the five years since Wilksch last competed at the tournament, he has gained a wealth of experience racing around the world.<\/p>\n
In 2021 Wilksch completed a European tour where he had to \u201cself-fund\u201d his way across the continent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really cool experience. There was a lot of stress around not having income while I was there and having to try and fund all that,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s really helped with my riding this year, having that experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve certainly been a lot calmer in situations because of that experience. You\u2019re also always trying to find that edge when you\u2019re always competing and because the talent pool in these tournaments is so deep.\u201d<\/p>\n
But before Wilksch can set his sights to the world stage, he must first get through the next few weeks of the National Championship, which he currently leads.<\/p>\n
Wilksch will race another four times around Australia before jetting off to France, before completing another four upon his return, which he says forces him to remain focused and not get complacent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe focus at the moment is the national championship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives us something to focus on in the meantime and prepare us for going overseas<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we didn\u2019t have so many races you could focus almost too much on the world championship race and basically could get complacent and lose that race craft and precision you get from racing all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime I didn\u2019t get selected you\u2019re always trying to prove the selectors wrong and beat the guy that got selected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been the chaser and never been at this end of the field, so it is a new experience. For me, to be achieving what I am now is a really cool feeling but you have to keep working hard to make sure you stay there.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the weekend, Wilksch completed the Hattah in Mildura, one of Australia\u2019s toughest races where he finished P4 overall and recorded a new personal-best time at the track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE world stage beckons for Great Western\u2019s Andrew Wilksch, who has been selected to represent Australia in the planet\u2019s biggest off-road motorcycle competition. Wilksch, along with nine others, will head to France this August to compete in the 2022 International Six Day Enduro against the world\u2019s best enduro riders. Racing between five-and-six hours over six […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[38],"class_list":["post-1420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/andy-w-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-mU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1420"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}