The Swedes – Legends
It’s been a while since a Swedish rider has captured a World Motocross Championship, in fact 23 years ago Hansson won the 500cc Championship in a rather surprise result.
Many years ago the Swede’s owned the FIM World Motocross Championships. It was back in 1957 that Bill Nilsson handed Sweden their first ever World title when he finished ahead of Belgian rider Rene Baeten and fellow Swede Sten Lundin.
Following the success of Nilsson came World titles from Rolf Tibblin (250cc class) and Lundin (500cc class) in 1959. Nilsson added title number two to his first title with another 500cc Championship in 1960. Lundin not to be outdone by Nilsson also won his second title in 1961, this time in the 500cc class. Tibblin didn’t want to be left out of the picture and scored his second and third titles in 1962 and 1963, both in the 500cc class.
The most successful Swedish rider of all time, Torsten Hallman, really came into his own winning the World 250cc title in 1962, 1963, 1966 and 1967. What makes Hallmans success all the more impressive was that he defeated the great Belgian rider Joel Robert on those years, many still consider Roberts the greatest 250cc rider of all time. Hallman also won 37 Grand Prix’s and his tally was just recently passed by Antonio Cairoli who now has 39 GP wins.
As Hallman’s success stopped, it came the very tough Bengt Aberg, who took his first of two 500cc Championships in 1969, leading home British rider John Banks and East German legend Paul Friedrichs. Aberg would add 500cc title number two a year later when he led a Swedish whitewash of the 500cc title, second that year was Arne Kring and third Ake Jonsson.
Hakan Andersson, who had been around the top three in previous seasons, finally won a World 250cc Championship in 1973. Andersson finished second on three occasions and winning in 1973 was a reward for his consistency.
Belgian riders had started to dominate the 1970’s and it wasn’t until 1979 when Hakan Carlquist won the World 250cc Championship and then added the 500cc Championship in 1983. Marcus Hansson added a World 500cc Championship in 1994 ending the great tradition of the Swedish success in the FIM World Motocross Championships.
Since Hanssons success, there has been little to get excited about for the Swede’s, even GP wins are something that seems unrealistic at this moment. In fact Swedish representation on the World scene is minimal at best.
The proud nation of Sweden also won the Motocross of Nations on seven occasions, first in 1955, followed by victories in 1958, 1961, 1962, 1970, 1971 and finally in 1974.