Thursday, 8 May: His rivals in Ski GP1 may not want to hear it but Jeremy Poret says he is 'super fit, raring to go and looking forward to carrying on in Milan where he left off in Doha, Qatar – winning'.

Since Qatar the 25-year-old from St Maximin in France has been putting in hours of training in the gym as well as keeping fit riding his motocross bike and Jet-Ski free riding, his fitness regime clearly paying dividends after winning the opening round of the French Championship.

Poret leads the Ski GP1 World Championship by 14 points from Portugal’s Tiago Sousa, last year’s title runner-up, with Dubai-based Frenchman Ludo Caumont a further 12 points adrift in third.

After opting not to run on the UIM-ABP tour last year, Poret is back with a vengeance, very focussed and on a mission to regain the World crown he held in 2011 and 2012, and to do this he must take it from his elder brother Mickael, the defending and two-time World Champion.

But if Qatar is a benchmark for the season ahead, Poret’s main rival could well be American race ace Chris MacClugage rather than the clutch of very talented European riders in the line-up.

In the season- opener in March Poret picked up his third Qatar GP title, but in both races after sluggish starts had to come from behind to beat the American. He did so convincingly in race 1 but trailed until the penultimate lap in race 2 when a broken sparkplug cost the unfortunate MacClugage the win and GP title.

What promises to be another enthralling duel between the two will resume in Milan, with the likes of Sousa, Caumont if in the starting line-up, Alberto Monti, Mickael Poret and Nacho Armillas all capable of challenging for race and GP honours.