Laia Sanz is one step away from achieving the primary objective of any competitor in the Dakar Rally: getting to the end. The Gas Gas pilot successfully completed the last difficult special in the rally, which was disputed today between Nasca and Pisco, with 275 kilometres against the clock, and now she only has to finish the 29 kilometres of the selective sector tomorrow to become queen of the Dakar once more.

Last year’s women’s winner is the only woman remaining in the race this year and throughout the competition, in spite of her youth, she has shown great courage and maturity on her bike. This Catalan girl, who also holds 11 world trial titles, has been able to marshal her forces and mitigate the wear on her bike until the penultimate stage of this Dakar. Today she crossed the finishing line in 41st place and in the general she is 40th. To equal her classification last year and finish 39th, Laia would have to recover the almost 11 minutes that the Dutchman Daniel Willemsen is ahead of her, but she says this is not the objective: “This year I wanted to try to be among the first 30, but in the circumstances it has not been possible, this has been a tough rally and a lot of things have happened, but I am really proud of what I have done and how I did it. To repeat 39th place is not my aim and with hardly 30 kilometres of special I shall not try to risk it. Tomorrow all I want to do is finish”.

On the rally moving into Peru, Laia said she was delighted: “Coming to Peru has been a real success, as the stages in this country have been the best and most beautiful of the race. Today, for example, I enjoyed the dunes a lot and I navigated well. I feel very happy here and I hope to come back”.

She’s done it again! Laia Sanz has impressed the world in finishing for the second consecutive time in 39th place, the same result as she achieved in her debut last year in the Dakar Rally, the toughest bike trial on the planet. As she did then, the Gas Gas rider once again takes victory in the women’s class home, where she must find space for this trophy beside her 11 titles as World Trial Champion, 10 continental titles in the speciality and 5 Nations Trial cups. This girl from Corbera de Llobregat thus adds to her fame as the best female bike rider of all times.

Always insatiable in her eagerness to improve, Laia Sanz started this year with the intention of doing battle on two wheels not only with the girls but also with the boys. Her ambition was to finish among the first 30 classified, but in the end she had to “settle” for an equally extraordinary 39th place in the final classification. Laia spoke of a result which concealed a great deal of effort: “I am better pleased with this year than the one before. It has been a very tough rally in some parts and the circumstances affecting me during the race made it even more complicated, but I kept going to the end. I am very satisfied with the way I rode and navigated. I think I have taken a very important step forward. I must thank Gas Gas for the opportunity that they gave me and all the team for their efforts and the great job they’ve done. We prepared this great project in a very short time and we should be proud. The bike also performed like a champion. It was fantastic and I am very happy. I dedicate this success to my team mate Marc Guasch, and I hope he recovers very soon”.

A Dakar with difficult moments
The race started with stiffer demands than the riders had expected, above all with the tremendous heat in the Argentine stages. The Spanish multi-champion, who this year had physically prepared herself very conscientiously, overcame the harshness of the rally and in the third stage achieved a promising 35th scratch place. Unfortunately, she had missed two obligatory way points and was sanctioned 40 minutes, which dropped her back to 69th place.

This circumstance was a big handicap, as she then had to start the next special a long way back and was hampered on the track by the dust thrown up by other slower competitors. The situation was worsened for the Catalan girl when she had a fall which caused a hole in her fuel tank and a bad injury to her right hand. In spite of the pain, Laia showed exceptional resistance and went on, without complaining and without ceasing to recover places. “That day I thought I had broken my hand and would not be able to continue, but it was not so bad and after a couple of days with the help of the physiotherapist it was getting better. Hurting my hand was a shock, but what worried me more while I was out there was the bike. With the tank holed I was losing fuel and had to transfer fuel from Marc’s bike. We almost didn’t finish...”.

In the eighth stage, Laia Sanz and the Gas Gas team had their saddest day: at 15 kilometres from the finish, Guasch had a serious fall which left him with four broken ribs, a perforated lung and damage to his spleen. Laia waited with him for an hour until he was taken away by helicopter and then she continued on her way. “It was the most shattering blow of the whole rally. I felt very disturbed by what had happened. I finished the day very upset, but in the Dakar there is never much time for lamenting, so in the next stage I just concentrated on what I had to do and the truth is that it didn’t go badly”, she said.

From that point Laia had to ride the remaining six stages without any help, but this was no problem for her. Her talent and tenacity enabled her to recover places every day and, at her 26 years and with only one previous participation in the Dakar, Laia showed extraordinary maturity: “I am very proud of the race I’ve finished because I navigated very well on all the days and I rode alone, reading the road book and being self-sufficient. I think I handled the race pretty well, without making too many mistakes and always minimising the risks and the wear on the Gas Gas”.

Laia Sanz is the only woman biker to finish the Dakar this year. Her reign lasts until next first of January, when she will have to defend her title as winner in the women’s class and face for the third consecutive time the challenge of the toughest raid rally in the world.

Laia Sanz came through the trial by fire in the Dakar and reached the finishing line of the 12th stage (Arequipa - Nasca) in a commendable 52nd place. Neither her exhaustion after yesterday’s viciously hard marathon stage, nor the mechanical demands to which the bike was subjected on two consecutive specials with no possibility of repairs, prevented the only girl still in the race from fulfilling all that was demanded from her.

The bike competitors had to withstand an extremely hard special yesterday, with two difficult fords and a long and shattering stretch of “fesh fesh”. And to end with, a rather special camp awaited them in the evening, where no assistance was allowed in. As if that was not enough, Laia Sanz had to spend the night on the ground, as did the other riders, without tent or sleeping bag and in very cold conditions: “I had an awful night. The organisation gave us a poncho so that we could wrap up a bit, but not even that was any good. Every half-hour I woke up with the cold and this morning I got up absolutely knackered”.

The Gas Gas rider gathered strength from weakness and came through the trial, displaying courage and endurance: “There was nothing for it but to forget the tiredness, get going and set my mind on facing the next hard stage. And that’s what I did. The Dakar is like that, and you only get to the end by standing up to the tough conditions that face you in this trial”.

At the end of the special, which was shortened by 50 kilometres because of the deteriorated condition of the land following the heavy rains this week in the Nasca region, Laia crossed the finishing line in 52nd position. In the general she dropped one place and is now 41st.

Laia Sanz finished the eleventh special in 39th place, another great result for her, continuing her improvement in the general classification so that she is now in 40th place, just one place from equalling her result in last year’s event.

The Dakar is a continuous challenge and for Laia it could be no less. The Gas Gas rider faced the marathon stage today, the first of this type since 2007. In practice this meant that the Dakar Women’s Champion could not get help from the team mechanic, the same as for the other bikers, but neither could she count on her team mate Marc Guasch, who is still in hospital in Chile, progressing well. Laia had to manage servicing her bike by herself and bivouac to be ready for the twelfth stage of the rally tomorrow.

For this reason the Spanish girl has kept up her precautions of the last few days, but without missing any chance to move up a place: “Today’s stage was bike-breaking. We had to ford two rivers where the water came up to waist level and in one of them there was a current that swept you away. In the first ford there were a lot of riders with problems getting across, because it was easy to lose your balance and the bike could fall over. For many of them water had got into the filter and they found it difficult to start the engines again. So I looked for another place to cross, a little further away, trying it out, and it worked well. Then we came to an area of around 40 kilometres with “fesh fesh” which was very hard, both for the riders and for the bikes. There I finished up absolutely wrecked. I thought I was the only one to be so tired, but when I came to the finishing line everyone was saying how exhausted they were. In the last part there were some very fast stretches, but I took it quietly”.

Laia Sanz continues advancing at a good pace in her route to the finishing line in Lima. The Gas Gas rider again managed the special with intelligence, taking no risks and finishing the tenth stage, between Iquique and Arica, in 47th position. In the general classification she moves up five places to reach 41st.

Since she has been without her backup, Laia has shown a firm determination to reach the finish and in order to do that she understands clearly how she must handle the race. This trial multi-champion is demonstrating a veteran skill really unexpected in a girl for whom this is only her second time in the always difficult Dakar Rally: “I didn’t go very fast in order to save the mechanics with a view to the coming days. Today there were riders who had engine failure and I don’t want that to happen to me. Tomorrow we have the marathon stage and I will have no mechanic, so I don’t want any surprises and I will go extra carefully. I am very aware that I have to take a comfortable but safe rhythm and this is what I’m doing”.

Sanz, who has been riding solo since her team mate Marc Guasch had to retire, is showing that she is very secure in the navigation: “I’m happy because I’m finding it fairly easy to read the road book and navigate. In the dunes, today, there were a couple of tricky points where a lot of people got lost. Fortunately, I found the right way and that helped to give me more confidence”.

At the end of the stage, Laia could have improved her result but she stopped to help a Turkish rider who had fallen: “The boy had to communicate with the organisation because he had injured an arm and he could only speak Turkish, so I stopped to help him. I hope he’s OK”.

Tomorrow the rally moves into Peru where there is a timed stage of 478 kilometres.

Marc Guasch, the Gas Gas rider who was backup to Laia Sanz until his accident, is still under observation, conscious and showing good progress after the serious injuries he received.

Laia Sanz has recovered well from the hard blow suffered by the Gas Gas team yesterday, when Marc Guasch had to quit the Dakar Rally due to a heavy fall which caused him several broken ribs, a perforated lung and damage to the spleen, among other injuries. The Dakar women’s champion had no alternative than to pluck up courage, set aside her worry about her team mate and face the ninth stage of the rally with steadfastness.

In front of her were 556 kilometres (126 of them cancelled) and, for the first time since the rally began, the only woman still in the race had to face the desert alone and all the possible difficulties which could appear along the way. The girl from Corbera de Llobregat reacted with strength and courage, asserting her character as is normal in a competitor of her stature, and gave a great performance in today’s stage, the ninth of the rally. The eleven times Women’s Trial World Champion finished the special in 40th place, her best classification in this Dakar event, and in the general she holds position 46.

“It was a very good day because I could ride without anyone in front to bother me, without dust, and for 90% of the special I was on my own without seeing a single other bike. It was a fantastic feeling and I also navigated well, without mistakes and with a good safe rhythm”, said Laia.

The Gas Gas rider also spoke about Marc Guasch, but she emphasised that she is resolute in facing the rest of the rally: “I am very sad for him and I’m so sorry about what has happened to him. In terms of the sport, his absence is a great loss to the team, but I feel very strong and have a lot of confidence in getting through the rest of the race. I am not at all afraid about going on alone. I know my abilities and I will try to get to the finish, and to do so in the best place that I can. The only thing that worries me is if something goes wrong and I don’t know how to deal with it, for the rest I am quite calm”.

Marc Guasch, Laia Sanz’s backup, has had to abandon the Dakar Rally after suffering a heavy blow to the thorax, in a fall which happened 50 kilometres from the end of the eighth special, between Copiapó and Antofagasta (Chile). The Gas Gas rider had to be lifted off by helicopter and taken to the camp, where the organization’s doctors gave him a preliminary examination before sending him by ambulance to a hospital in Antofagasta.

Laia Sanz told the story: “I didn’t see the accident. Marc was in front of me and I found him on the ground. We were in a dry riverbed with soft sand and, apparently, his front wheel had hit a hidden rock. He was thrown forward with the bad luck that the bike fell on top of him. The camp doctors say that he has broken four ribs, but they have taken him to a hospital for X-rays”.

Until the accident, Marc Guasch and Laia Sanz were in 45th and 47th places, respectively, which meant a good stage for them, moving up some places. When the accident happened, the two riders stayed there “for a few minutes before advising the organisation”, as Laia said, “to see if he could get up and go on”. “After a bit we realised that he was in no condition to ride and I called for the rescue”. Laia stayed with her team mate for nearly an hour until the medical helicopter arrived.

When Guasch had been lifted away, Laia continued her run to the end of the stage, crossing the finishing line in 47th position after the race officials had discounted the time that she had been stopped. In the general, the Gas Gas rider moved up four places and is now in 47th position.

Laia Sanz, the only woman still in the race, will have to go on alone for the rest of the rally without the support of her backup, who has had to withdraw. “I feel so bad for Marc, he didn’t deserve that and I hope he recovers quickly. During these days we have been a great team and we understood each other very well. Clearly I have lost a very important support, but there is no option, I have to go on and ride as well as I can to get to Lima”.

With the Dakar Rally now at its halfway point, Laia Sanz weighs up her performance so far in this 2012 event. Last year’s Dakar Women’s Champion is the only woman still in the race, she holds 51st place in the provisional classification for motorbikes.

-In the fourth stage you had a fall and injured your right hand. How is it now?

-My hand is now fine. On the day of the fall I was really scared because the hand was very swollen and I couldn’t hold the handlebar. I thought I had broken it, but fortunately not and in three days, with the help of the physiotherapist (Miguel Ángel Domínguez), it is already much better.

-After the first week, how are you feeling?

-Now I’m fine. The truth is that I found the first three days very tough and more exhausting than these last. Perhaps it is because now I’m into the rhythm of not sleeping very much. Anyway, I think I have got through to the rest day in good shape, even yesterday in the last part of the stage I felt well, which means that I’m in good shape. I feel strong.

-Did you expect the first week to be so hard?

-The initial impression was that the Dakar would be very hard, because I found the first stages very difficult. Perhaps there were fewer kilometres than last year but they were very slow to do and very physical, and then it was also very hot and it was easy to become dehydrated.

-Last year you came to the rest day in 48th place. How do you rate your results this time?

I had hoped to be a little higher up. If it hadn’t been for the hole in the fuel tank which happened when I fell and which lost me a lot of time, I would be much better classified, particularly because when you have a problem which drops you down the classification, the next day it is much harder to get into the rhythm. What happens is that the people in front of you are going more slowly than you are, but you are held back by the dust that they throw up and you cannot get past, and it ends up as a vicious circle.

-What can we expect from you for the rest of the race?

-If I stay steadily among the first 50 I can improve on the 39th place of last year. What is important is to understand that I don’t need to ride very fast but I do need to go without hurry, without taking risks and being aware that people will be dropping out. The Dakar above all is a race against oneself. We have now changed the engine, to be safer and more confident on the mechanical side. A lot of people have preferred to wait, but I fear that some will soon have problems because the desert is very damaging.

-How is the Gas Gas 450 going?

-The bike is going very well, with no problems. This project was prepared in a very short time and without doing any training in Morocco, so that naturally every day we see some detail to be improved, but I am very satisfied.

-Last year you had Jordi Arcarons as a luxury backup rider. How are things with your new companion Marc Guasch?

-I am pleasantly surprised as I did not think we would get on together so well. We are doing a great job and I even believe I have done more kilometres with him than I did last year with Jordi. Marc wants us to go quietly, he advises me very well and keeps me calm.

-You are the only woman left in the race. What has happened this year?

-In this Dakar Rosa Romero and I were the only two in the motorbike class. I was rather surprised, but it’s possible that the toughness of the Dakar has discouraged more than one. I imagine that the economic situation at the moment is no help either…. I would like to have competed against more girls.

The relatively quiet day for the Dakar Rally competitors yesterday, due to the cancellation of the special time trial, was good for Laia Sanz. It was a relief for her hand, now much recovered from the injury she suffered when she fell in the fourth stage, and she was able to ride with few troubles.

Laia, the only woman still in the race in the motorbike class, crossed the finishing line of the seventh stage in 48th place, which lifts her by 6 to 51st place in the general classification. As she said, the fearsome Copiapó – Copiapó loop “was not as hard as I expected”. “In fact, this was the first day when everything went well and I really enjoyed it. At the beginning we couldn’t go very fast because we were on a track and there was a lot of dust, but after the refuelling we came to the desert and I could overtake several riders without a problem. I am pleased because the day went well and my hand is much better”.

With the women’s trophy in the bag, Laia wants above all to get through to the end and finish in the best place possible, but without making mistakes: “The idea is to work up through the ranking bit by bit and I don’t want to go faster than I have to. Starting a few places higher we shall already be a bit quicker than today because there will be fewer people in front to hold us back. Marc and I are doing what we have to do and this is how we will continue”.

Marc Guasch came 49th in this stage and is now 52nd in the general classification. The Gas Gas rider said he was confident with the team after the first week of competition: “We are working well and we have to continue in the same way. Although the first days were very demanding, tomorrow is the rest day and we can gather our forces ready to face the last week of competition”.

After the cancellation of the sixth stage, which was to be between Fiambalá and Copiapó, due to excessive snowfalls on the summits and poor conditions on the ground, Laia Sanz and Marc Guasch travelled the cancelled route, as did all the other competitors.

It was a very different day for everyone, without the physical demands of the race, but lacking the calm of a rest day. Without doubt, this obligatory pause has been a very good thing for last year’s Dakar Women’s Champion, who had an extra day for her hand to recover after being injured in the fourth stage of the rally. “What is certain is that another day of rest can’t have been bad for my hand. It’s a bit better and I don’t think it will be a problem for the rest of the race”, she said.

Relaxed and easy, the Gas Gas riders took advantage of the route to take photographs with the background landscape at an altitude of over 4,000 metres. “Today we felt like tourists; we stopped to look at the scenery and take photos. After five pretty tough days, it’s no bad thing to have a bit of a break. I’d be happier if I hadn’t been penalised in the third stage and punctured the tank in the fourth, but there’s nothing to do about that now”.

As for the weather conditions, the Spanish girl said they had not seen anything extraordinary on their route: “When we got to the ridge it didn’t seem as snowy and icy as we had expected, but it is quite possible that earlier, first thing in the morning, it was dangerous. I don’t know because I didn’t see what the ground was like for the special”.

Tomorrow the race continues with the fearsome Copiapó - Copiapó loop, 444 kilometres of time trial, which comes before the rest stage. Laia Sanz will start in 55th place in the general classification and Marc Guasch in 57th.