THE WORLD’S toughest off-road motor-racing challenge has broken all records for female competitors in 2019 – more women are taking part in the Dakar Rally this year than ever before in its 41-year history.
And Spain is the country which has ‘sent’ the most women to vie for victory.
Despite the name, the Dakar Rally is not always held in Sénégal, or even on the continent of Africa: this year, it involves 12 days of racing across the desert of southern Perú.
It starts in the capital, Lima, on Sunday (January 6) and ends there once again on Thursday, January 17.
Although male competitors continue to make up an overwhelming majority with over 500 taking part – hence the above photograph of Dakar Rally men – the total of 17 women joining in the 2019 edition is unprecedented.
Of these, four are Spanish, including the biker known by the popular media as the ‘Queen of the Desert’, Laia Sanz.
The Team KTM rider, 32, is the top female competitor in off-road motorcycle racing – 2018 was the first time in eight years that she failed to win the Dakar Rally, a trial where just reaching the finish is considered a major achievement.
She has also been World Endurance Champion five times and World Trial Champion 13 times.
Laia’s compatriots include Sara García, riding in the Dakar for the first time ever in what will be a baptism by fire: she will be the first female to compete in the ‘originals’ category, where participants have no repair or maintenance help from mechanics at any point during the race, making it the toughest section of all.
Cristina Gutiérrez, from Burgos, the first Spanish woman to finish the Dakar Rally by car in 2018, is back in play and again on four wheels in 2019, as is her fellow countrywoman Rosa Romero Font, wife of twice-world champion motorcycle rally rider Joan ‘Nani’ Roma.
Paraguay, Bolivia, France, Italy and Russia each have one female taking part in the 2019 Dakar Rally – the latter’s Anastasiya Nifontova will be up against Laia Sanz and the Italian Camelia Liparoti will be Cristina Gutiérrez’s co-pilot - whilst Perú, the Czech Republic, The Netherlands and Germany have two each.
Germany’s pair, competing in a UTV, are Annett Fischer and Andrea Mayer, married to Team Mini’s owner and to Stéphane Peterhansel, 13-times Dakar champion, respectively.
Host country Perú’s female entries are motorcyclist Gianna Velarde, hoping to be the first two-wheeled Peruvian woman to finish the Dakar Rally, and Fernanda Kanno, competing by car.
Paraguay’s Andrea Lafarja is South American cross-country champion and winner of the Route 40 Rally across Argentina, whilst Bolivian Suany Martínez is the first woman from her country to compete on a quad and is hoping to at least finish the race on her third attempt, having been forced to retire in 2017 and 2018.
Dutch biker Mirjam Pol and her compatriot, lorry-driving racer Elisabert Henrik, along with the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Novotna and Olga Rouckova on motorcycle and UTV respectively, and lorry-racer from France, Florence Deronce, make up the full quota of women getting ready to hit the Peruvian desert this Sunday.
Photograph: France’s Fabien Planet during the fourth stage of the 2015 Dakar Rally between Chilecito, Argentina and the city of Copiapó in Chile
