Tour

To win the Dakar applies not only be the best, you also have to have the best team"

It has been over a thousand days since Marc Coma crowned champion for the first time at Lac Rose Dakar, Sunday January 15, 2006. Three years later, after a painful withdrawal in 2007 and the equally sad cancellation in 2008, the Repsol KTM Team rider has dominated with a strong hand in the first edition of South America, where the Dakar has left its natural continent, Africa, to go into an equally inhospitable land where they speak Spanish. The Dakar agreement between Argentina and Chile will be remembered for its extreme hardness, similar to the participants have been found in Africa every year.

With this victory, Marc Coma joins the small, select group of competitors who have won more than one occasion, the Dakar, and also becomes the first Spanish man to win two times the world's toughest test of the raids. Coma, which won the Dakar in 2006 and nearly repeat victory in 2007, has a full gig in this edition, noted for his consistency and superiority over all the evidence, and the almost absence of errors to During the two weeks of racing.

Looking back, seven years ago, an intruder broke into the elite of Dakar. He was a rookie. An unfamiliar name to the "Africans", although the national enduro knew the talent of Marc Coma. With an experimental motorcycle called CSV, sponsored by Carlos Sotelo, Coma came out of the muddy prologues of Europe in the sixth. In Africa moved into the top twenty, and the day I broke the bike was doing the tenth fastest time of the stage.

The following year, in 2003, integrated into a structure with KTM Nani Roma and Isidre Esteve, and with the support of Repsol YPF, Coma had his first opportunity for a media Dakar and not squandered. At the controls of his single-cylinder and in the middle of a firing fast and powerful twin cylinder, Eat more than fulfilled its objectives to reach Dakar and eleventh in his locker to add third places in four stages. It was the beginning of the legend ...

The begginings

Marc Coma, rider since childhood, had a history at home. His father, Ricard, became fifth in the Championship of Spain of motocross in the senior category. At home there was always a motorcycle, both his uncle and his father have been great fans, and it also ended up catching the little Montesa Cota 348 Marc A was the first bike to be raised at the early age of eight and under the tutelage of his uncle. As I learned, Marc took every dismissal of his uncle to get on the Cota and disappear on the mountain roads near his home.

At trial bike of his uncle went on his own first bike, a Puch Cobra 74 with which starred his first races with friends in town. From there he went, always conditioned by good grades in school, a Honda CR 125 Motocross with the already started running its first test. These races minor regional championships followed, provincial and national finals. This expertise was used to fund up to 18 years, but Marc was no clear future in the circuits, so before you leave and look for work, thought to try his luck in the enduro. At that time, Marc was already clear that he wanted to become a professional pilot.

From that time focused on the Enduro, and soon reached his first sporting triumphs and successes in this field. Eat In 1995 Spain proclaimed Junior Champion in the 175cc category above. a KTM 250cc. After that title, Marc joined the National Enduro Team, with whom he won the following year the silver medal at the World Enduro. In this brilliant result was followed by the successive years, as the fourth in the Enduro European Championship Senior exceeding 175 cc, Enduro World Championship Sub-23, World Championship for Enduro Nations, and the third position in the Enduro World Nations.