Souad is still there
Dakar 2025 |
Stage 11 |
SHUBAYTAH
> SHUBAYTAH
January 16
th
2025
- 23:51
[GMT + 3]
Souad Mouktadiri is the first Moroccan woman to have participated in the Dakar. Today, perhaps she will provide an answer to the question she has consistently been asked since her debut in the rally-raid discipline: yes, Souad is still there and on the Dakar finisher’s podium, what’s more. Any more questions?
Xavier de Soultrait, the SSV title holder, finished 21st on the eve of the rally’s finish. The Frenchman really went for it to defend his crown, damaging his Polaris three times. Ahead of him in 20th position is a rookie, the first Moroccan woman to take starter’s orders on the Dakar and the first competitor from the country on four wheels. In 2011, biker Harite Gabarit paved the way and has been followed by two other riders since then. However, the participation of Souad Mouktadiri was not initially inspired by these feats. Her path began with iconoclastic introspection: “I set off in a Peugeot 205 GTI to discover Morocco. A lone woman in a car surprised everybody. In a valley inland from Agadir, the people where I stopped to eat told me I wouldn’t be able to go any further without a 4x4. The following year, I returned in such a vehicle. I’m from Casablanca, the capital. In Morocco, we’re called the insiders”. Souad took her thirst for discovering her country as far as the desert and the dunes, where she met her first difficulties. By chance, she came across the caravan of the Rallye du Maroc, which opened the doors of its bivouac to her. Invited by the organisation, which was run by a woman at the time, she was struck by the absence of Moroccans involved in the sport, in Morocco, the land of rally-raid par excellence and home to unrivalled 4x4 guides... it was the last straw. “It was in 2012 when my children were still small, but I told myself: if nobody wants to do it, then I will and here I am!”
Souad is a businesswoman, a consultant in electronic archive management, and is in charge of a team of up to 45 employees. In 2018, she was ready. She purchased a Patrol in which she entered the Rallye du Maroc… which had just been taken over by none other than David Castera. After 5 participations on this “veritable mini-Dakar”, the Moroccan driver got to grips with the mother of all rally-raids. Her Can-Am was entirely prepared in Merzouga by local mechanics and her close-knit team is one of the smallest on the bivouac: “I set off with a bit of fear in the belly, because I don’t have an assistance team for the stages. If something breaks, I’m out. My goal is to drive carefully but I always have knots in my stomach every day”. As was the case for her debut more than ten years ago, the desert lion has met with the same reaction: “‘You’re still here? You’ve come back?’ Why do they think that I wouldn’t come back? Is it because I’m a woman, an Arab woman? I don’t have an in-stage assistance team, my car hasn’t been as thoroughly prepared as others, I get that, but I’m proud to start alongside the major players. There were two women in the SSV class at the start and I’m still here. I need to hold on to my place until the end of the race. I’m crossing my fingers so that I can reach the finish and fly the Moroccan flag, to show that Moroccan women are powerful, that we don’t have any limits, like all the women in the world”.
