Triple Dakar Rally champion Stephane Peterhansel drove his BMW to victory in Thursday’s fifth stage, covering the 423km run from Calama in 4 hours, 33 minutes, 19 seconds to storm into second place in the chase for this year’s title.
The 45-year-old Frenchman, the champion on four wheels in 2004, 2005 and 2007 and a six-time motorcycle winner, was 1 minute, 24 seconds ahead of Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah in a Volkswagen and 3 minutes, 15 seconds in front of overall leader Carlos Sainz in another Volkswagen.
Peterhansel reveled on a stage that featured many challenging sand dunes and also caused the Volkswagen duo of Al-Attiyah and defending champion Sainz navigational headaches.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Despite that, Sainz, a double world rally champion, held onto the overall lead, 2 minutes, 26 seconds ahead of Peterhansel, with last year’s runner-up Al-Attiyah in third, 2 minutes, 33 seconds off the pace.
“We managed to overtake Al-Attiyah and Sainz by taking advantage of a navigation error they made. After that, it was our turn to make a mistake and get a flat tire,” Peterhansel said. “They overtook again, but we managed to pass them at the end.”
Portugal’s Paulo Goncalves, riding a BMW, won the motorcycle stage, with Chilean Aprilia rider Francisco Lopez taking second. Goncalves finished 2 minutes, 18 seconds ahead of Lopez and 2 minutes, 19 seconds in front of Dutchman Frans Verhoeven on another BMW.
Overall leader Marc Coma of Spain was fourth on a KTM, just ahead of main rival and defending champion Cyril Despres of France, who was 12 seconds behind the Spaniard.
Despres stays second in the overall standings, despite being handed a 10-minute penalty for a technical infringement.
“I was told at half past four in the morning that I’d been given a penalty. I just forgot my thermal gloves, so I went back to get them and I didn’t see that there were signposts I had to follow at the exit,” the French rider said.
Goncalves, who is fourth overall, said he had stopped to help rival Olivier Pain, who had broken a wrist in a nasty fall.
“After the refueling point, I stopped to help Olivier Pain who had fallen. The rules say we should stop,” Goncalves said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but