The 47th edition of the Dakar has set a date for the world's rally-raiders in Saudi Arabia from 3 to 17 January.
More information:
https://www.dakar.com
https://www.facebook.com/Dakar
https://www.twitter.com/Dakar
https://www.instagram.com/DakarRally
#Dakar2025
© Amaury Sport Organisation - https://www.aso.fr
More information:
https://www.dakar.com
https://www.facebook.com/Dakar
https://www.twitter.com/Dakar
https://www.instagram.com/DakarRally
#Dakar2025
© Amaury Sport Organisation - https://www.aso.fr
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SportTranscription
00:001979, the first edition, my first Dakar.
00:09Martine Descartes, 33 years old.
00:13December 26th, 1978, it was the day after Christmas
00:19and we all gathered at the Place de Trocadéro, ready to leave.
00:23It was quite chilly and a bit overcast.
00:26And what was very funny was that in the Parc Fermé for the cars,
00:31there were several female crews.
00:34Some of them thought they were going on safari.
00:37For some people, this was more like a holiday in Africa than a race.
00:47I've done quite a bit of gymnastics and I've done some running,
00:50trying to go a bit further and faster every time and I quit smoking.
00:57We left Trocadéro early in the morning and we arrived to Molay.
01:03And when we got there, they made us do the prologue in a mud bath.
01:09By the end, we were soaking wet and covered in mud from head to toe.
01:27And then we had to get back on the road.
01:30It was freezing cold.
01:32I remember stopping at a newsagent's and buying up a load of papers,
01:38whatever I could find.
01:40Then I stuffed them down my jacket to give myself another layer of protection
01:44because I was so cold.
01:50At nine o'clock the next morning, we boarded the ferry for Algiers.
01:55And that was when we started to measure the scale of this whole thing.
01:59When I loaded my bike onto the boat, it was like, this is it.
02:04It was too late for any second thoughts.
02:07The Dakar was underway.
02:14So we arrived in Algiers and we found out that the president,
02:19Aurel Bormédien, had died that day.
02:23So between the calls of the museum and the noise of all the crowds that had gathered,
02:29getting through Algiers was nothing like what we had expected.
02:34And it was slow.
02:36Very, very, very slow.
02:39We were tired and it was hard work just getting to the first bivouac.
02:45When we finally got there, it was even colder than it had been in France.
02:51I remember waking up with ice on my duvet.
02:54When I got up, I could hear it cracking beneath me.
02:59So we were heading into an African rally in Antarctica.