Spanish biker dies after injuries sustained in Dakar crash

Alastair Moffitt

The 41-year-old crashed his KTM out of 45th position last Thursday and was operated on for serious abdominal injuries in Zouerat in Western Sahara. He was then transferred to Dakar in Senegal before returning to Spain. However, he was unable to recover from his injuries in an Alicante hospital and died yesterday.

In the motorcycle category yesterday, Cyril Despres took the overall lead with a win on stage 10 around the city of Atar in Mauritania.

He now leads Fabrizio Meoni by nine minutes 20 seconds after pipping the Italian to stage honours yesterday. Marc Coma remains third overall after finishing stage 10 down in fifth place while Isidre Esteve has moved up a spot to fourth, knocking Alfie Cox down to fifth.

In the car class, Stephane Peterhansel marginally extended his overall lead with victory on stage 10 yesterday.

The Mitsubishi driver won the stage by 1min 27sec from team-mate Luc Alphand and leads the former skiing star by over 21mins in the overall standings. Peterhansel said: “It was a nice and varied stage today. We passed along many tracks and dunes and a new pass off-road, where we had to climb a little.

“There was around 60 kilometres of camel grass and then some more dunes. I hit one small dune quite hard and there is a little front damage, but nothing too serious.

It was good to drive together today and the result of the stage has strengthened our position in the race.”

Former Dakar winner Jutta Kleinschmidt remains in third position but the VW driver lost over half an hour on Peterhansel yesterday.

Nissan’s Giniel de Villiers moved up to fourth while NASCAR ace Robby Gordon finished fourth on stage to move up the rankings.