David Martin Romero: “I’d love to be able to run the Paris-Roubaix someday”
A motorcycle mishap is to blame for one of the six new faces of the Kometa Cycling Team for 2020, when it will be called Kometa-Xstra, competing in the amateur squad and dreaming of someday making the leap to professionalism. At least part of it. David Martín Romero is that cyclist and with that small accident, nothing serious, ended up starting a love story with the bike that first took him to the mountain bike, with very good results, and more recently to the road.
Martín (Sevilla, 19 February 1999) lives in Mairena de Aljarafe, but in cycling terms the nearby town of La Puebla del Río also carries a lot of weight in his life. There one of his uncles owns a shop, Bicicletas Palma, and runs a small mountain bike club. “When I was recovering from the accident my uncle told me why he wasn’t pointing me at his team. He was very restless and I said yes, I was going to try. They went to tests at the provincial circuits of Seville and Huelva. The truth is that I liked it and since then I competed both in cross country and in bikemarathon”, he remembers.
The Andalusian quickly stood out in the field of big wheels both regionally and nationally. In 2015, as a cadet, he would win the Spanish Open and won the silver medal at the National Championships. “Well, the record is there, not bad, I also think it could have been better. The problem is that I was increasingly clear that I wanted to devote myself to cycling professionally, but in the world of mountain biking it was more complicated. There wasn’t that much future, there are fewer professionals and pure professionalism is something that is less seen. That’s when I decided to change to the road,” he says.
In October 2017 he would be signed by Team Extremadura. Alfonso Rodríguez’s structure, based in Zafra (Badajoz), opened the doors for him. In one of his first races, Don Benito’s 2018 Guadiana Circuit, the inaugural meeting of the Spanish Cup, he looked for the escape and fought for the classification of the flying goals. Already in its first year it began to show its top of speed. In his sporting dreams the race that shines with its own light is marked by the cobblestones. “I would love to be able to race Paris-Roubaix one day. And of course to win it. It would be a dream come true,” says the Sevillian.
Martín is another example of a runner who has so far combined competition with a job. And always close to the bikes. At Zambru´s Bike, a small cycling business in Seville’s Bormujos, he works as a mechanic in the afternoons. A few years ago he was on the verge of leaving the bicycle definitively for economic reasons, circumstances derived from the separation of his parents. “When I finished my studies I applied for a Higher Degree in Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, but they didn’t take me, so in the meantime I started working in the afternoons on Zambru´s Bike, where they gave me the freedom to train and compete”.
Looking ahead to his arrival at the Kometa Cycling Team Martin confesses some of his aspirations. “The Guadiana Circuit of Don Benito or the Manuel Sanroma Memorial of Almagro are two races that I would like to race. And of course to fight to win. Also the Giro d’Italia u23, would be a race that I would love to run. The dream is one day to reach professionalism. But it’s a dream, and we all have it. The important thing is to keep growing, little by little”.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
