The death of Italian motorcyclist Fabrizio Meoni — a two-time Dakar winner — overshadowed the 11th stage of the Dakar Rally in Kiffa, Mauritania, on Tuesday, won by Germany’s Jutta Kleinschmidt, driving a Volkswagen, and Spain’s Marc Coma, riding a KTM.
Meoni, the Dakar Rally winner in 2001 and 2002 who was in second place in the overall bike standings, died of a heart attack after a crash, organisers said.
”We sent a helicopter when he fell and they found his heart had stopped. Sadly, they were unable to revive him,” said rally director Etienne Lavigne.
The Italian motorcycle rider was 47. He leaves a widow and two children.
”The entire Dakar caravan wishes to express its sincere condolences to his family, his friends and his many admirers,” Lavigne said.
His death came a day after Spanish rider Jose Manuel Perez (41) died of injuries sustained in a crash last week.
There have been 22 deaths since the rally started 27 years ago.
Organisers later announced that the motorbike section of the 12th stage on Wednesday — a gruelling 819km run, with a 586km timed special, from Kiffa to Bamako, the capital of Mali — has been cancelled at the behest of the riders out of respect for Meoni.
”To pay tribute to Fabrizio, the riders don’t want to race tomorrow. It’s a choice that I can understand and respect, even if it’s not mine. They will be taken to Bamako by plane,” said Lavigne.
Frenchman David Fretigne, who was one of the first to come to Meoni’s crash site, echoed comments by other riders that the area where the Italian crashed was not a fast part of the special, which had been cut by 256km because of adverse weather conditions.
”I really don’t understand what happened. According to me, he was maybe looking at his road instruments,” said Fretigne.
”We had just refuelled, so the bikes were pretty heavy, he maybe lost balance on a small dune with the weight. The scene of the crash wasn’t dangerous.
”We had just lost ourselves and we were looking for the right track. Cyril [Despres] was on the good track and took off. Fabrizio followed in his dust and 300m later I saw Coma with his hand in the air, so I stopped.
”I immediately knew it was serious. There was a lot of bleeding. I had trouble finding the distress signal and finally launched it. I then waited for the helicopter because I couldn’t just leave,” Fretigne said.
Spanish rider Isidre Esteve Pujol added that the ”track wasn’t dangerous at that place and we weren’t riding very fast at that moment. It’s very hard to explain what happened, because his fall wasn’t spectacular at all.”
Teammate Jean Brucy said Meoni had said only on Monday how much he was looking forward to his retirement when Dakar 2005 wound up in six days’ time.
”He said to me, ‘I’ve been completely selfish for 10 years and now I’ll be able to dedicate myself to my family’,” Brucy said.
Peterhansel said he had not thought that Meoni was in a bad way when he passed him at the crash site.
”I didn’t think it was serious. I thought he had broken a collarbone or wrist,” the defending car champion said.
”It’s terrible, unbearable. What’s astonishing is that the spot where it happened he was definitely not going fast. It’s really unlucky.”
On the race front, Kleinschmidt finished the 400km special in 5:29,37, 1,04 and 2,42 ahead of the Mitsubishis of Frenchmen Luc Alphand and Peterhansel respectively.
In the overall standings, Peterhansel retains a 19,50 lead over Alphand and 1:08,03 over Kleinschmidt.
In the motorbike race, Coma came home in 5:58,59, more than one minute ahead of Despres and almost four minutes ahead of Pujol.
Despres holds the lead in the overall standings, 14,50 ahead of Coma and 22,23 ahead of Pujol. — Sapa-AFP