SPEEDY SELBORNIAN: Breece Romans of Selborne College will represent SA at the FIM continental championship in Uganda in August Picture: SUPPLIED
Selborne College’s “Breece the Beast” Romans, the current fourth-best motorcross rider in the country, has been selected to compete at the FIM Africa Motorcross of African Nations continental championship in Uganda during August.
Romans, 17, has been racing competitively for half a decade now and received his first South African junior blazer for motorcross in 2018. In 2019, Romans represented SA in Zimbabwe but when Covid struck in 2020, racing internationally was interrupted and he was forced to commit to practicing in his own capacity.
Romans is the only rider from East London who has been selected to compete at the FIM continental championships as well as the World Championships in Finland. In qualifying for selection to championships this year, he has spent gruelling hours on the track racing through six qualifying rounds in Cape Town, Gqerberha, Bloemfontein and Pietermaritzburg, among others.
The track in Gqerberha is considered the most challenging in the country and on July 2 Romans emerged triumphant after ranking second place.
He says, “we had to go up four weeks in a row to practice on that track in Gqerberha but you can never fully prepare for it because it’s a sandy surface so it keeps changing depending on the weather conditions. You don’t really know what the bike is going to do but you just have to be up for it, you can’t afford to be scared.”
So far for the season, Romans’ performance has remained consistently within the Top 5 national riders. However at the races in Bloemfontein he finished 15th as a result of a crash.
Despite this he is undeterred for the championships ahead and says, “motorcross is a mental sport because if you come into it with a bad energy and a bad vibe it’s not going to be very fun for you, so you can’t think about falling because if you think about it, it will happen.”
In preparation for the championships, Romans has to maintain his performance through regular practice as well as diet and physical conditioning, balancing these sporting demands with school work.
In future, he hopes to continue riding but is also committed to completing his education at a tertiary institution, saying that racing locally is not as financially lucrative as a contract abroad because the sporting code is more developed in other parts of the world.
Brett Romans, Breece’s father, says: “Allmans Racing is the biggest sponsor for Breece, but if there are any private individuals or companies willing to help Breece get to Uganda via sponsorship, that would be most welcome.
“Please contact me on b.romans@allmans.co.za.”
