Jordi Viladoms

Jordi Viladoms

Date of birth: 1/4/1980 Birthplace: Igualada – Catalunya – Spain Nationality: Spanish

Sporting career

Biography

Jordi Viladoms, was born 27 years ago in Igualada Spain. He took his first steps in the world of the two-wheels in BMX. He had a good style on the bicycle from the earliest stages. After becoming Spanish Champion and taking part in the World Championship, he began to look for new more exciting challenges. The lack of races, of participation and of help to compete abroad meant he had to park the bike and to try his luck in motocross, a sport that was not new to him.

He had started riding motorbikes at the same time as he learned to ride a bicycle at the age of 4. He would ride together with his father on an Italjet 50. At the age of 12 Jordi Viladoms began taking part in Motocross races in the 80cc class, and later in the 125cc and 250cc classes where he finished runner-up in the Spanish Junior Championship at the age of 18. Always responsible and aware of his duties he went to university and thus he spent less and less time on the bike. He lost contact with the world of competition, but both his parents and he himself knew that not many people got the chance to make a living out of motocross, and that there was the need to carve out a future for himself. The stakes were high and but got a degree in industrial engineering. From that moment on he decided to devote himself full-time to motorbikes.

During the 2004 season he made a very important qualitative jump. He finished the Spanish Motocross Championship in 6th position, got three consecutive podium finishes in the second part of the season and had several operations due to a shoulder injury. He was chosen to participate in the Motocross of Nations, one of the three riders representing Spain, which was a reward for his great progress.

He started his first season as a professional rider in 2005. With the support of sponsors such as Movistar and Repsol, and with Javier García Vico as team-mate, Jordi Viladoms competed in the Spanish Motocross Championship with renewed enthusiasm and ready to learn. It was a great chance and there were no excuses. Therefore, Jordi dedicated all his time to motocross something he had always been aiming to do and he did so in the best team and with the best Spanish rider as team-mate. Despite training harder than anyone else to be ready for the challenge, he injured his neck one week before the first race of the championship in a crash in Crevillente, and this conditioned the rest of the season. However, Viladoms competed against much more expert and prestigious riders in every race. In the fifth race of the season, staged in Guadarrama, he got his best result up to then, third in the first leg. His perseverance and sacrifice were rewarded and in the following race he managed to get on the podium for the first time, after two third places in San Esteban Gormaz. In the second half of the season, and still suffering from his neck injury, he finished all legs among the top five. The young Spanish motocross promise finished fourth in the overall standings.

Tough and a born fighter, Jordi Viladoms faced a new challenge in 2006: his first participation in the Dakar. A challenge filled with new experiences for this young Spaniard, who tackled it with enthusiasm and responsibility. The team, the bike, the discipline, the rivals, the race… Everything was new, but it is was also a project that adapted perfectly well to somebody with an spirit of sacrifice and a desire to improve like Jordi Viladoms. And Jordi completed a superb performance in the 2006 Dakar taking several top ten finishes in the different stages and finishing 13th when he crossed the Senegal border, very close to making a top ten finish in his first participation. However Viladoms also had his first meeting with the bitter side of the rally. He had a heavy crash – almost the only crash he had in over 10 000km of races – that forced him to retire. There were only 100km left and Viladoms was out, but he had made his mark with a masterly performance and he still had a wish to go back to Africa.

During the 2006 season, Viladoms participated together with Marc Coma in some races in the World Cross Country Rally Championship, achieving a brilliant 3rd position in the Dubai Rally. Jordi was fifth overall in the championship. During the Dakar 2007, a heavy crash forced him to retire with some really bad injures, after he got a stage victory and was 6th overall.

After an operation, the 2007 season was a long period of recovery for the Repsol rider, who returned to racing later in the year, in the Rally por las Pampas. It was an excellent return because in the tough Chilean desert a place where Viladoms showed that he can reach the heights of the best riders around, finishing third overall. In the Pharoahs Rally, his performance was even better because he was second alongside his teammate Marc Coma; proclaimed World Raids Champion for the third consecutive time. The final date of the year in Dubai was where the Spanish rider received another setback, Lady Luck turned her back on him yet again. On the third stage he said farewell to the race after a fall, although after a small rest he is back in training so as to be totally fit for the most important race in his diary: the Rally Lisbon Dakar.

With the cancellation of the Dakar 2008, the first date of the season for Viladoms was the Central Europe Rally, opening round of the Dakar Series in March where he finished in sixth position. In May Jordi participated in the Rally Sardinia where he was fifth overall, and just one month later he travelled to Brazil for the Rally Dos Sertoes. Mechanical problems on the final stage made him drop down the overall classification, although he was able to stay in the race and take advantage of the occasion to continue with his training. The next race was in July, the Baja España Aragón where mechanical problems meant he had to retire on the second day. His final preparations for the Dakar 2009 included the UAE Desert Challenge, he finished in fifth position overall.

This industrial engineer who has always had his ideas very clear as well as both feet firmly on the ground, will be 29 in Argentina, a place where he competed last year (third in the Rally Patagonia Atacama 2007), but the Dakar is very toughn, with the riding demands and duration at another level. His main objective is to continue improving his riding style and to help his lead rider out when necessary, and so Viladoms will be back in the Dakar as a member of one of the best teams around, the Team Repsol KTM.