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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.
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.
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. 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 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. He nonetheless was able to take a third Cross-Country Rallies title with another five victories that year.
The Dakar was cancelled in 2008, Coma retiring early on from its replacement, the Central Europe Rally, after fracturing his knee in the second stage. The Dakar moved to South America in 2009, Coma winning three of the first four stages and securing a comfortable second victory in the event, nearly 90 minutes clear of runner-up Despres.
This was followed by a third Dakar victory in 2011, during which Coma took another five stage wins to beat Despres by only 15 minutes.
The following year"s contest was even closer, with Coma and Despres separated by less than two minutes before Coma was forced to concede defeat when he lost 45 minutes due to an engine change penalty. After winning the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship in 2012, Coma was forced to withdraw from the 2013 Dakar Rally owing to a shoulder injury sustained in the Moroccan Rally. He recovered from this to finish runner-up in the World Championship with three wins, before taking a fourth Dakar victory on his return to the event in 2014 with a further two stage wins.
He clinched a sixth world title the same year with victory in Morocco.