When Germany begins its defence of the FIM Long Track of Nations (LToN) powered by Anlas, Kineo and HKC Koopmann on home ground at Vechta on Saturday evening and, in the process, attempts to extend its number of victories in the competition to eleven, only one rider from its victorious 2024 team will be in action.

Already a three-time winner of the event, Lukas Fienhage – who currently leads the 2025 FIM Long Track World Championship by two points with one round remaining – has been in fantastic form all season and would love to add another LToN gold medal to the ones he helped his nation win in 2017, 2022 and 2024.

“It’s always a big honour for me to represent my country and show pride,” he said. “I love it! It’s a big pleasure for me to have played a part in three of Germany’s ten gold medals. It’s really something cool, especially my first one in 2017 which was epic.

“I came in as reserve that day when Josef [Hukelmann] called me up to the team. I had not even expectations of riding a single Heat so when he came to me after the practice and said he wanted me to race the Heats I was kind of feeling the pressure, but it was unbelievable.”

Just eighteen years old when he won his first LToN gold medal, Fienhage has since established himself as one of the leading riders of his generation and claimed the 2020 FIM Long Track World Championship, a result he backed up with silver last season.

Having been one of Long Track’s major players for so long, it is easy to forget that the affable and outgoing Fienhage is still a relatively young rider who will only turn twenty-six the day before the action gets under way in the Reiterwaldstadion Vechta on Saturday evening – although, as a polished professional, he is planning on delaying the party for twenty-four hours.

“On my birthday I will be in the stadium watching the under twenty-three guys giving it a go [in the FIM Long Track Under 23 World Cup]. I hope the next day we can do something great with the team so that I have a double reason to celebrate and then there will be no holding back!”

Fienhage was the top scorer last year in Morizès and while he relishes the passionate support he gets when racing on home ground, he is always prepared to get on with the job in hand whatever country he finds himself in.

“We could ride wherever – as a racer I don’t really care where I am – but there is nothing better than the feeling of racing at home in front of a packed crowd, with my friends and sponsors and family watching. I can’t wait for Saturday and I’m one-hundred per cent ready.”