Peterhansel wins stage five of Dakar Rally: Stephane Peterhansel, chasing a third consecutive win, won stage five of the Dakar Rally yesterday - but former world champion Carlos Sainz remains in control.
Peterhansel's hat-trick bid was thrown off course on Tuesday when the former bike champion took a wrong turn and lost 17 minutes to slide out of the top 10. But the Mitsubishi driver was back on form to win the 217-mile stage across Morocco from Ouarzazate to Tan Tan.
He clawed back nearly nine minutes on former world rally champion Sainz, who still leads the event overall for Volkswagen despite languishing down in ninth place on yesterday's stage.
Peterhansel, who is nine minutes off the pace in ninth overall, expects to close on Sainz as the event continues its trek towards Senegal.
"I started 14th on the road behind many cars this morning and managed to make good progress," said Peterhansel. "A couple of cars had flat tyres and we moved up the field. Tomorrow I will start first on the stage and we will enter Mauritania. The race may well take on a different form from now on. I lost 17 minutes in Morocco yesterday, but now I have a good chance to make up that time over the next few days."
Bruno Saby's disappointing eighth place meant he dropped out of the top three, slipping to sixth overall. His Volkswagen team-mate Jutta Kleinschmidt, the only woman to win the Dakar Rally, moved up to second while former skiing star Luc Alphand is third for Mitsubishi.
Volkswagen's Marc Miller moved into contention with the second fastest time, lifting the American up to fourth overall.
In the bike class, Marc Coma held on to the lead despite coming off second best to Cyril Despres. Despres beat Coma to Tan Tan by almost four minutes but still trails his rival by 85 seconds in the overall rankings. Isidre Esteve Pujol conceded second place to Despres and dropped to third with the third fastest time on yesterday's stage.
Team Brasil turns back
Team Brasil One became the second boat to turn back towards Cape Town, South African yesterday during the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. The vessel suffered structural damage and skipper Torben Grael made the decision to reach shore as soon as possible after the crew carried out emergency repairs.
Earlier in the day Team Ericsson, only 187 miles from Cape Town on the 6,100 nautical mile leg to Melbourne, headed back when part of the keel movement system broke.
Brasil One suffered the damage while sailing upwind with 15 knots of wind, 300 nautical miles of the south coast of South Africa.
Brasil One project director Alan Adler said: "We received this information early this morning here in Brazil with a bit of disappointment. But the most important thing right now is the crew's safety".
On the course Team Movistar, skippered by Bouwe Bekking, led first leg winner Abn Amro One (Mike Sanderson) by 27 nautical miles with Paul Cayard's Pirates of the Caribbean in third.
SA awarded gold medals
Four and a half years after finishing second at the 2001 world championships, South Africa's 4x100 metres relay team will be awarded the gold medals.
The IAAF, the ruling body of athletics, has confirmed in writing a decision to retroactively reallocate the medals after a doping ban on American Tim Montgomery. The United States, race winners in Edmonton in 2001, have been stripped of the title after former team member Montgomery was banned for two years last month and had all his results from March 2001 annulled.
The decision to award the golds to Morne Nagel, Leeroy Newton, Matthew Quinn and Corne du Plessis doubled South Africa's gold medal tally from the 2001 event. Trinidad and Tobago will be awarded the silver medals and Australia the bronze.
Montgomery, who never tested positive for a banned substance and has protested his innocence, was banned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport for offences related to the BALCO laboratory. Montgomery subsequently announced his retirement.
