MOTOR SPORT/Dakar Rally:The annual Dakar Rally, arguably the most dangerous endurance event in world sport, was cancelled yesterday on the eve of the race when the organisers said they could not guarantee the competitors' safety due to the threat of terrorism.
It is the first time in the 30-year history of the race, in which cars, motorbikes and trucks battle their way across the Sahara Desert, that it has been cancelled.
The organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), said the threat of an attack, and the murder last December of a French family on holiday in Mauritania that has been blamed on al-Qaida-linked terrorists, meant they could not run the risk.
In a statement, ASO said: "Based on the current international political tension and the murder of four French tourists . . . but also mainly the direct threats launched directly against the race by terrorist organisations, no other decision but the cancellation of the sporting event could be taken."
It added that they planned to hold the race in 2009.
The race was due to start in Lisbon today and finish in Dakar, Senegal, on January 20th. It would have seen around 600 racers tackle daytime temperatures that reach 40C (104F) and freezing cold at night as they travel 5,760 miles through Portugal, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal.
In previous years, the race had also gone through Mali, but it had already been excluded this year when the west African country's foreign ministry warned of instability in the region.
The appeal of the race is precisely its biggest weakness - the course weaves through remote scrubland, expansive deserts and mountainous dunes, making it almost impossible to provide security.
Mauritania's foreign ministry said yesterday the cancellation was unnecessary as the country had committed a 3,000-man force to protect the racers. The French sports minister, Bernard Laporte, said that, although the cancellation would have "disastrous economic consequences" for host countries, security concerns had to come first.
A spokesman for Mauritania's president, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, joined other African officials in condemning the decision.
Carlos Sainz, a double world rally champion and winner of five stages in the Dakar rally last year, expressed his disappointment at the news: "The cancellation of such a great event is bad for the world of sport," he said.
Even without the terrorist threat, the race is one of the world's most dangerous sporting events, with a death toll near 50 in its 30 years. It is dominated by amateurs, many of them first-timers.
In 1982 Mark Thatcher's car broke down. He was eventually found 30 miles off course, after a six-day manhunt and a tearful appeal from his mother, then British Prime Minister.
