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Dakar Rally: less than 5% of participants are women

Dakar Rally: less than 5% of participants are women

“The performance speaks for itself”, wants to believe the pilot, one of the few women competing in the celebrated rally-raid, whose 45th edition started last saturday Saudi Arabia.

Of the 790 test participants, only 31 are women, that is, less than 5%.

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Dania Akeel at the Rally

The woman finished in 8th place in the category of “light prototypes” last year in his first participation in the testwhich was also his first season as a professional.

His ambition: “To drive even better” together with his Uruguayan co-driver Sergio Lafuente.

The Saudi had her pfirst driving sensations in the desert with his cousins ​​and some ‘buggys’ during the weekends. “Driving is still a really relaxing feeling. Behind the wheel, all my skills are in driving, that’s very calming,” she says.

Beginnings in the career

He got his driving license at the age of 17 in England, where he went to study, and at the age of 20 he obtained his motorcycle license while continuing his studies in international trade.

“I used to drive when I was in Europe, in England or it doesn’t matter where, but I had no problem with not being able to drive here. When we were allowed to drive it was a tremendous feeling and of course it had an impact,” he recalls.

In 2020, two years after the lifting of the ban, more than 174,000 permits had already been distributed among the women of this kingdom of 34.8 million inhabitants, according to the local press.

The right of women to drive is part of the opening policy initiated by Riyadh.

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dakar rally

In October 2018, the country hosted a friendly soccer match between Argentina and Brazil and then the first Formula E race in December, as well as the Italian Super Cup in January 2019.

The Saudi power takes advantage of these events to show that it is open to the world: 15,000 women attended the match between Juventus and Milan, although they were confined to a section of the stadium.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), despite the “progressive image conveyed” by these events, a lack of opportunities for the saudi women to practice sports in the kingdom.

Lack of gender equity

“If the athletes participate and are part of the public relations machine of the Saudi government, this is useless, rather the opposite, they simply feed the propaganda of the regime and are part of the disguise” of what happens behind the scenes: “A Saudi civil society that has been gagged and silenced,” says Lina Al-Hathlul, whose sister Lujain, a well-known activist, was sentenced to five years in prison after taking part in a anti-ban campaign to drive women.

In conditional freedom since February 2021, “she is under surveillance, she is officially prohibited from traveling until 2026, but so is her family, which means that it is a covert detention.”

When Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), the organizer of the Dakar, announced the relocation of the rally to Saudi Arabia after eleven years in South America, the criticism intensified, since it coincided that a few months before the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a close friend of Saudi power who later became a critic, he was assassinated in the kingdom’s embassy in Turkey.

Since then, “the pressure has eased, people tend to be less critical out of their own interest, but the violations are increasing,” says Lina Al-Hathlul.

The pressure is not less for the athletes, but “that is part of the game”, according to Dania Akeel: “Participating in a race like the Dakar, with the public and a lot of publicity around, that generates a lot of expectations in some and few in others, although this shouldn’t impact the way you drive. Driving is between you and you.”

Source: Ambito

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