NEUQUEN -The deadly Dakar Rally was in mourning again yesterday with the news that French motorcyclist Pascal Terry had been found dead while competing in this year’s race.
The 49-year-old Terry was found dead overnight after the fourth stage of the gruelling spectacle which is taking place for the first time in South America after terrorist threats forced its cancellation last year.
He had been missing since Sunday and the 2nd stage of the race between Santa Rosa and Puerto Madryn.
‘The motorcyclist was found in an area that is very inaccessible with very dense vegetation 15 metres from his bike,’ organisers said in a statement.
‘He had taken off his helmet and had taken shelter with food and water next to him.’
Terry had informed race control on Sunday that his Yamaha had run out of petrol at the 197-kilometre mark, but that he had procured some from another competitor.
Organisers later tried to contact him on two occasions, but were unable to get any response.
Search operations were launched the following day, but they were unable to locate Terry until early yesterday morning when he was found dead by local police.
An investigation was immediately opened to determine the cause of death.
‘There was a breakdown in the organisation’s chain of communication between January 4 and 5,’ said race director Etienne Lavigne.
‘Information that he had deployed a distress signal reached Paris on January 4 and we here were not informed before the fifth.’
Terry was the first fatality at this year’s race which started in Buenos Aires on January 3 and finishes back in the Argentine capital on January 17, but according to an AFP count he is the 51st person involved with the event to die since its inception in 1979.
These include 19 competitors, 17 race personnel, including its founder Thierry Sabine in a helicopter crash in 1986, and at least 15 spectators or others who died due to the high-speed chase of cars, motorcycles and lorries over some of the toughest terrain in the world.
The rally is also hotly contested by ecologists, who blast its effect on the local environment, and has been the target of terrorist threats such as last year which forced organisers to cancel it for the first time.
They later agreed to switch the event to South America although the race’s duration has been shortened.
– Nampa-AFP
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