South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers won the 12th stage of the Dakar Rally as the gruelling off-road race crossed from Mauritania to Mali on Wednesday.
De Villiers finished the 586km trek from Kiffa, Mauritania, to Mali’s capital, Bamako, in seven hours, 20 minutes and 58 seconds.
Stephane Peterhansel of France was 3,01 behind, with fellow Frenchman Luc Alphand 6,27 back.
Peterhansel maintained his race lead, with 41:05,13. Alphand ended the day 23,16 behind him for overall honours. Jutta Kleinschmidt of Germany was in third place overall, trailing by 1:18,47.
Race organisers cancelled the 12th stage of the rally’s motorcycle event at the request of riders mourning the loss of Italian motorcyclist Fabrizio Meoni, who died the day before in a crash.
The riders were flown to Mali.
Austrian motorcycle maker KTM urged its riders to pull out of the race after Meoni’s accident, but said it was up to individual drivers, teams and their sponsors to make that decision.
KTM lost another of its best drivers, Richard Sainct, in September after an accident during the Rally of the Pharaohs in Egypt.
In the wake of two such accidents in ”only a few months, the manufacturer will be contemplating its future support for the rally sport”, KTM said in a statement from its headquarters in Austria.
Meoni (47) won the Dakar motorcycle title in 2001 and 2002. He had been in second place overall in this year’s race behind France’s Cyril Despres before crashing between the Mauritanian towns of Atta and Kiffa.
Meoni’s death came a day after Spanish motorcyclist Jose Manuel Perez died in a hospital in Spain from injuries sustained in a crash last Thursday on the rally’s seventh stage, also in Mauritania.
More than two dozen people have died in conjunction with the rally since it was first held in 1979. The event involves separate races for cars, trucks and motorcycles.
This year’s race covers 8Â 956km from Barcelona, Spain, to Dakar, Senegal, including 5Â 431km of competitive special stages. The race ends on January 16. — Sapa-AP
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