Founder and director of MDS, Patrick Bauer, gives his daily impression of how the race is going.
« … At the end of the first three days the competitors are exhausted. There’s a record number of retirements : 122 for the first three days [less thanb 50 for the whole course last year]. It’s due to a combination of high temperatures, strong winds and unusually high hygrometry levels (20% compared to the usual 6%). I also think the competitors are less well prepared this year compared to last.
As a result of these factors we reduced the length of today’s stage and the level of difficulty involved by scratching the parts with very steep hill climbs and crossing of ergs.

The situation on the course today was less worrying…. We’d anticipated the problems. Plus the runners were perhaps more aware following the problems encountered by one of our Irish competitors who suffered a severe attack of hyperthermia yesterday. Which means the body loses the capacity to cool itself down. Along with the medical team and our repatriation insurer we made the joint decision to have him repatriated to a hospital in Bordeaux where he could be treated as quickly as possible.
Concerning the victory of Jordanian Al Aqra today, I must say I’m very happy. We met during the Desert Cup in Jordan. His performance has spiced up the race: he’s rivalling the best of the best – Lahcen Ahansal. Along with Abderrahmane Maliki they make up two very good outsiders on the course.