Fatigue is starting to pile up

Dakar 2019 | Stage 7 | San Juan de Marcona > San Juan de Marcona
January 14 th 2019 - 00:56 [GMT -5]

The last female rider left in the rally, Anastasia Nifontova, managed to finish stage 6 before nightfall. It was another success for the Husqvarna rider, who is racing in her second Dakar in the Original by Motul category. The Russian's fatigue remains intact despite the mounting fatigue. "The organisers did their best to kill me, but I lived to fight another day!", she says in a burst of laughter. Jokes apart, Anastasia admits the stage from Arequipa to San Juan de Marcona pushed her to the limit."First, we had twenty kilometres on dunes where the sand had been turned over. We needed to stay the course to find our way, but the terrain made it really difficult. I also came a cropper and was left gasping for breath. My chest hit the dashboard hard, I thought this was it for me, but I managed to recover after ten minutes." The solid Russian who has been dreaming of the Dakar since she was a little girl got back under way with the help of another competitor. "We weren't riding with the cars today, so it was harder to see the tracks in the sand", she adds. "As a rule of thumb, if a car can go through, a motorbike even more so. Today, the terrain was harder to read. Near the end, I decided not to go through a waypoint at the top of a dune. I didn't want to risk having to finish the special in the dark. It's the sixth day of racing and fatigue is starting to pile up. Nights are short and the stages are exhausting. But we've only got four stages to go, Lima is just around the corner." One thing is for sure: Anastasia's two daughters will again be mighty proud of their extraordinary mother.

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