Australian Andy Caldecott’s dream of finishing the 2004 Dakar Rally on his first attempt looks to be over.
Early reports have indicated that Caldecott was taken to the hospital for a suspected broken ankle, yet he still finished the challenging 7th stage in ninth place, in which many of the top riders experienced drama. While Caldecott has not been officially listed as withdrawn, he no longer appears in the official overall results. If the break is not too severe and he can continue, it would be a superhuman effort to finish even with just a mild break or fracture.
Most of the competitors in the 2004 Telefonica Dakar will long remember stage 7 of the gruelling event. On the longest stage of the rally at 1,055 kilometres, with 701 kilometres of that being special stages, KTM triple champion Richard Sainct from France forgot about his painful arm to clock the fastest time of the day. Following Sainct home was his fellow countryman Jean Brucy, who pulled in around 7 minutes behind in second place, and third was the new overall rally leader, KTM’s Cyril Despres.
“I’m back,” Sainct said at the end of the day. “The days after my injury, I rode above my limits, only to keep up with the others. Now I’m motivated for the rest of the Dakar Rally. I hope I won’t have to pay the price for today’s stage sometime later in the race. At the moment, a terrible backache is bothering me.”
Sainct’s teammate, Frenchman Cyril Despres, took advantage of a problem with a bib-mousse tube by Meoni and a hard crash by yesterday’s overall leader, Estevez, to claim overall leadership. He now leads the event by 3 minutes and 3 seconds from Spaniard Nani Roma. Sainct himself has now moved into third outright, only 3 minutes and 21 seconds away from the lead.
Photo: Overall leader Cyril Despres
Photgrapher: G. Soldano
Top 10 outright after stage 7
1 002 DESPRES KTM 15h 23' 30" >Gap 00
2 004 ROMA KTM 15h 26' 33" >Gap 03.03 minutes
3 001 SAINCT KTM 15h 26' 51" >Gap 03.21 minutes
4 010 COX KTM 15h 28' 31" >Gap 05.01 minutes
5 009 BRUCY KTM 15h 34' 56" >Gap 11.26 minutes
6 015 ULLEVALSETER KTM 15h 43' 44" >Gap 20.14 minutes
7 008 DE GAVARDO KTM 15h 48' 17" >Gap 24.47 minutes
8 006 LUNDMARK KTM 15h 53' 26" >Gap 29.56 minutes
9 045 GRAZIANI KTM 16h 30' 28" >Gap 1h 06.58 minutes
10 023 CZACHOR KTM 16h 34' 05" >Gap 1h 10.35 minutes
