Daniel Sanders: “It was good to get back on the bike”

Dakar 2024 | Prologue | ALULA > ALULA
January 5 ^th 2024 - 12:06 [GMT + 3]

The Australian arrived on the Dakar somewhat short of top form, but nevertheless achieved the 2nd best time of the day, 12’’ behind Tosha Schareina.

“It was okay, I guess. It was good to get back on the bike and into the desert. It’s been a long time for me since the broken femur, so I just wanted to push and try to get some confidence back in my speed and tricky navigation. There was a lot of rough terrain out there. It was good to make it to the finish line of the prologue and hopefully we’ll get a good selection for tomorrow’s stage. But it will need a lot of time to get back on the rally bike, get up to speed and get used to the rhythm again. It wasn’t too bad, a good first day, I think. Physically, I’m not at my best. Same as last year: I had the elbow injury last year with only one month on the bike before and the same two weeks in America training on the rally bike and then coming to the Dakar and hoping for the best. We’re just trying our best every day and hopefully the leg can hold, but now it’s different to training, because when you’re training you can ease off a little bit, but when you’re racing you have to push a lot. We’ll try to survive every day and get as far down the track as we can because it’s going to be a long, tough Dakar. With an injury, it’s not going to be fun”.