Alvar Martín

A great lover of sport since his earliest childhood, Alvar Martín was fascinated by the more competitive side of physical activity. He began in athletics, although with the appearance of some physical problems (“I had a growth spurt very early on and those things are always noticeable in terms of muscles”) his evolution led him towards Duathlon and, catapulted from this combined modality, he finally ended up in road cycling. “Duathlon was good for me, but I didn’t see as much of a future in it as I did in cycling. At home, cycling was by no means an unknown tool, especially given the great family hobby and the sporting activities of both his father and his older sister, today’s Movistar Team rider Sara Martín. “From watching my sister compete and experiencing first-hand the atmosphere of the races I ended up getting the bug to try it, I’m very competitive and I also wanted to experience it first hand,” he says. Martín took on his first competitions on his own in the cycling academies category as a first year child, joining the Club Ciclista Arandino the following season. And in this structure he has been growing, progressing and maturing. Looking ahead to 2022, he is heading for his second year in the youth category with a change of team. “They have been very nice years in Recambios Callejo. Looking ahead to next year my idea is to be able to grow in a slightly larger structure and go deeper and see how this sport works in a new and higher category such as the U23. The idea is to get to know the future, although I’m also very lucky because I have good references at home”, he smiles. As a rider, Martín defines himself as a complete cyclist. “I’m not a pure climber, in the longer climbs I try to hold on and resist. In small groups I have a lot of speed. In the Vuelta a Valladolid, for example, I finished second behind Portugal’s Antonio Morgado in the first stage. But I am not a climber. In my area there are not many climbs, in the end the ascent to Montejo in the Vuelta a la Ribera de Duero is the only big climb we have nearby. Sometimes we go down to the Sistema Central, to the mountain passes of the Sierra. In La Quesera, in the Riaza area, my sister and I have been there quite a lot”. Martín, who admires Wout Van Aert, Carlos Rodríguez and Juan Ayuso, is in the second year of his baccalaureate in science. “I’d like to do some engineering”, he adds.