P72
FEATURE I 2025 CYCLE NEWS RIDER OF THE YEAR: MARC MARQUEZ
Return
The
Nothing grabs
the attention
quite like a
comeback story.
And in 2025,
Marc Marquez
completed
arguably
the greatest
turnaround
Grand Prix
racing has
ever seen by
claiming his
ninth World title
with five races
to spare, a
whole six years
after his last.
BY NEIL MORRISON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE
T
he respective returns of
Barry Sheene in 1975 and
Mick Doohan in 1992 to the
pinnacle of Grand Prix racing are
rightly lauded and celebrated, not
just for an eye-watering resilience
to pain, but for their sheer bloody-
minded refusal to give in and
fight their way back to the top.
It's no understatement to sug
-
gest the travails Marc Marquez
faced since that fateful sum-
mer's afternoon outside Jerez
in July 2020, when he snapped
the humerus bone in his right
arm, were as painful as those
his predecessors endured
and more prolonged.
