News from National Federations

Victor Arbekov, the 1965 250cc Motocross World Champion, passed away on the early morning of February, 18 at the age of 74. FIM Europe received the sad news as well as the text below from the Motorcycle Federation of Russia. "Victor Arbekov, honored master of sports, honored coach of the USSR, the First USSR Motocross World champion. At the age of 17 he won the USSR championship in the 125 cc. Next year he repeated his success. At the age of 19, being already master of sports and a famous motocross rider, he was drafted into the army; he was in the CSKA team. From 1961 to 1968 he was a member of the USSR team. In 1965 on a motorcycle CZ-250 Victor Arbekov won the gold medal of the World Championship and became the first Russian rider, who won the title of World Champion. Then his main competitor, the

    The Danish Federation is organising a FIM Europe CONU Seminar for Motocross Clerks of the Course and Sporting Stewards.  The Seminar will be held on January 16th 2016, from 9 am to 6 pm in Vingsted Hotel and Conference Centre in Vejle (Denmark) and the instructor will be Peter Hansen. The nearest airport is the Billund International Airport, approximately 20 kms from venue. To sign up, email to kda@dmusport.dk within December 23rd 2015 It is kindly requested to contact the hotel for the room booking.  For further information, website www.vingsted.dk telephone: +45 73 86 55 33, e-mail: info@vingsyed.dk    

                            Last Saturday, 5th of December, the fourth tree planting action took place in Balen (Belgium). Since 2012, on the initiative of former motocross world champions, Eric Geboers, Joel Smets and Stefan Everts, a tree planting action has been organized with the support of the FMB and the motocross community in Flanders resulting in the fourth motocross CO2 forest. With this initiative the motocross community wants to compensate the CO2 emissions caused by their favourite sport. This shows their concern for the environmental impact of their sport upon the climate change.  Through these actions the motocross community also wants to recall the Flemish politicians their promises to find places for the possible implantation of new motocross circuits. As a matter of fact despite the big number of motocross champions living in Flanders, there are only 4 motocross tracks with

Belgium has always played an important role in the development of motocross. In 1934 the first race in the world named ‘Motorcross’ was organized in Belgium (Zoete Waters – Oud-Heverlee). It’s in Belgium were the starting gate system was invented. The first winner of the new European Championship in 1952 was Belgian rider Victor Leloup. René Baeten was the first Belgian World Champion in 1958. Our little country has had 15 different world champions and 56 world titles. Living legend Stefan Everts has a record of 10 world championship titles and 101 GP victories. Due to all these successes there were also many motocross riders who wanted to practice the sport in order to be able to become as good as their idols. During the seventies there were about 60 motocross training tracks in Belgium used for practice and/or competition. At the end of the eighties and beginning of the