Sam Sunderland, winner of the Dakar Rally 2022, withdraws due to a fall in the first stage | sports

the Dakar The year 2023 begins with a coup d’état in the first timed kilometers. the The current British motorcycle champion, Sam Sunderland, also champion in 2017, went down at kilometer 52 of the opening special of the test (a total of 4,706 kilometers under timed control) and had to retire immediately. The 33-year-old pilot, who was born in Southampton, was flown to a hospital in Yanbu, a coastal town in western Saudi Arabia, by a medical helicopter. The organization reported that he is conscious and far from danger, but they preferred to send him to the center for a full examination and check for back pain.

Sunderland trailed by ten seconds, ahead of Joan Barreda (Honda) and Pablo Quintanilla (Honda). The motorcycles were traveling through a dry, narrow river area when they crashed. Matthias Walkner (KTM), who was running fifth in the special, stopped to help his teammate and lost more than 12 minutes on the box office. The organization will have to decide how long it will compensate the Austrian, winner in 2018, for his altruistic gesture when it analyzed the incident. Also in 2018, Sunderland fell early in the fourth stage, while defending their first Tuareg in Peru. On that occasion, a lower back injury sidelined the nine-stage winner and favorite on Saudi soil from the race.

In the run-up to the 2023 edition, Sunderland were confident they could snap the Dakar’s winning streak. Since 2015, year Marc Coma’s last victory with a KTMNo motorcyclist has lifted two consecutive titles in the career.

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