Two nights ago, the organisers announced that stages six, seven and eight would be modified to ensure all participants could complete each of the stages safely and competitively without too much disruption.
Sadly, this was not enough to prevent the weather from interrupting the competition. Heavy rain overnight in Riyadh, where the bivouac are currently based, had become too flooded and dangerous for competitors in the bike and quads to continue, forcing the race organisers to cancel the 333 km stage to Al Diwadimi for bikes and quads.
The cancellation is good news for Australia’s Toby Price and Daniel ‘Chucky’ Sanders, who will both welcome the unexpected but much needed news that they’ll get an extra ‘rest day’, before tomorrow night’s eighth stage which is a 346 km return to Riyadh. Price has been battling a sore shoulder after his late stage fall in stage five, whilst Chucky is still recovering from severe food poisoning after the completion of stage four a few days ago.
The cars, buggies and trucks will carry on with the seventh stage on their own tonight, with Australian Molly Taylor and navigator Andrew Short set to start the stage in the T4 Modified Production SSV class in 14th position after yesterday’s sixth stage.
Catch all the highlights from the seventh stage tomorrow on SBS VICELAND from 5:20pm AEDT and anytime on SBS On Demand, where you can find and watch all previous stages of Dakar 2023.
