Kiara Fontanesi is not just six world titles and nine Italian championships. She is the champion who transformed Italian women's motocross from a niche sport to a reality, going from eight girls at the starting gate in 2008 to the packed paddocks of today.

‘I am proud of what I have left behind,’ she says at Kiara Party Day. Her career began among the boys, then America in 2007 at the age of 13, victory in Loretta and a Yamaha contract for the 2009 world championship. At the age of 15, she faced the sandy hell of Lommel: ‘I cried the first time. A month later, I won a heat, beating the girl who had lapped me.’

The best world championship? ‘The one in 2018, won at Imola, with the hill full of tricolour smoke bombs.’ Then two pregnancies that, instead of stopping her, relaunched her: ‘Skyler gave me the desire to come back. Without her, I would have stopped.’

This year she finished second: ‘It's the first time I've lost a world championship, but I'm happy. I gave it my all. I don't think about “what ifs”: I'm carrying my momentum forward to 2026.’ Her daughters on motorbikes? ‘I can't say no, that would be counterproductive. The little one is already asking to get on.’