KTM team back at Dakar start – Walkner operated again

The Spanish Honda man Tosha Schareina achieved the best motorcycle time on the 28 kilometers around Al-Ula twelve seconds ahead of the Australian Daniel Sanders on GasGas. The best KTM rider was the American Toby Price in eighth place, immediately ahead of last year’s winner Kevin Benavides from Argentina.

For cars, the prologue times do not count towards the overall ranking. Based on this, only the starting positions for the first stage on Saturday from Al-Ula over 414 km to Al Henakiyah will be determined. The Swede Mattias Ekström, who was the fastest in his electric-powered Audi prototype, has the right to vote first. Defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah from Qatar, who is aiming for the sixth Dakar victory of his career and third in a row, only ended up in twelfth place after a small navigation error.

Participants in the prestigious rally have to cover almost 8,000 kilometers across the Arabian Peninsula over the next two weeks. Almost 5,000 kilometers of these are special stages. This time Walkner had to stay away from the desert spectacle. The 38-year-old from Salzburg, who was the first Austrian to win the Dakar in 2018, suffered multiple leg injuries in a training accident in California at the beginning of December and has since had six operations.

On the day of the Dakar starting signal, the last planned operation took place in Graz – on the damaged left knee. The operation once again took longer than expected, namely around five hours, Walkner’s sister and manager Eva Walkner told the APA – Austria Press Agency. “It was a bit complicated again, but the doctors managed it well,” said Eva Walkner. Her brother had to spend one night in the intensive care unit for observation, after which he would have to stay in the hospital for at least two more weeks.

The primary aim is to observe the blood supply to a massive flap of skin that was transplanted from Walkner’s right thigh onto his large, open scar on his lower leg. “There is no all-clear yet, but the doctors are totally positive,” explained Eva Walkner. In addition to several open fractures of the tibia and fibula, Austria’s motorcycle star also suffered a comminuted fracture in his ankle, which has also already been treated surgically.