Marc Coma

Marc Coma i Camps (born 7 October 1976 in Avià, Barcelona, Spain) is a rally racing motorcycle rider. He won the Dakar Rally in 2006, 2009, 2011, 2014, and 2015 riding a KTM motorcycle, and is also a six-time Cross-Country Rallies World Champion.

Coma started off his professional career as an enduro rider, tasting his first success in the Spanish Junior championships in 1995. The following year, he joined the Spanish national enduro team, which took silver in the World Cup for Nations, before Coma added the under-23 world championship crown to his résumé in 1998. The same year, he helped Spain to win the World Cup for Nations, also contributing to third-place finishes in 2000 and 2001.

2002 marked Coma's first Dakar Rally participation, aboard an unproven Suzuki-CSV backed by compatriot Carlos Sotelo. Coma climbed as high as seventh in the overall classification before retiring halfway through the rally, but his performance caught the eye of the factory Repsol-backed KTM team, which he joined in 2003. He finished third in four stages, but could finish no higher than 18th overall, and would retire from the rally in 2004 after suffering head injuries in a crash. The same year, he won the Baja España Aragón en route to seventh place in the Cross-Country Rallies World Championship.

2005 saw Coma take his first stage win in the Dakar and finish a close runner-up to KTM team-mate Cyril Despres by a margin of under 10 minutes. He also contested four of that year's World Championships rounds, and victory in the Argentina-based Rally Por Las Pampas and Egyptian Rallye des Pharaons was enough for him to clinch the title. Despite failing to win any stages, Coma took his first overall Dakar victory in 2006, after which he successfully defended his Cross-Country Rallies title with five successive victories.

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