The Dakar Rally has been marred by a third fatality inside two days after the French motorcycle rider Thomas Bourgin was killed in an accident ahead of the seventh stage from Calama to Salta, reports The Guardian.
The 25-year-old collided with a Chilean police car at 8.23am local time as he made his way to the start of the stage via a mountainous link route.
Rally organisers confirmed an inquiry had been opened into the causes of the accident.
“Motorcycle rider number 106 Thomas Bourgin was the victim of a fatal traffic accident,” read a statement from the organisers. “The rally’s medical teams deployed on the ground were only able to certify the rider’s death, probably instant.”
Bourgin, from St Etienne, was competing in the Dakar Rally for the first time and had been lying in 68th place overall before the crash.
Bourgin’s death follows that of two people in a three-vehicle accident on Wednesday night.
That accident occurred when a race support vehicle collided head-on with a taxi close to the border between Peru and Chile. A second taxi overturned several times as it attempted to avoid the accident.
The driver and a passenger in the first taxi were both killed, while three passengers in the support vehicle belonging to the Race2Recovery team – all of them British – were among seven people who were injured and taken to hospitals in Tacna, Peru.
The annual endurance event is notorious for its fatal accidents, with this week’s double tragedy the latest in a long list that has seen more than 50 competitors and spectators lose their lives since the rally’s inception in 1979.
