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ESPN staff
Indian motorcycle racer CS Santosh has a suspected head injury after he suffered a crash on Wednesday in Stage 4 of the 2021 Dakar Rally underway in Saudi Arabia. It is understood that the 37-year-old was conscious when paramedics arrived on the scene and was airlifted to a hospital in Riyadh.
“It’s status quo as of now. We haven’t had any fresh updates from Riyadh. Doctors had placed Santosh under a 24-hour observation which is yet to expire. Some scan results are expected this evening. For now, the team is continuing with the race in Stage 5,” a HeroSports official told ESPN. Santosh’s teammate Joaquim Rodrigues completed Stage 4 in sixth place overall, the first top-10 finish for HeroSports at the Dakar Rally this year.
Santosh crashed around 135km into the stage on a gravel track and had to forfeit the stage. According to reports, he was attended to by the on-ground medical team before being flown to Saudi German hospital in Riyadh.
In an unfortunate incident, @cs_santosh22 suffered a crash in Stage 4 of #Dakar2021 today. He has been taken to a hospital in Riyadh. In the initial assessment, he seems stable.
Join us in wishing him a speedy recovery. pic.twitter.com/ePbtRIsBcT– Hero MotoSports (@hero_motosports) January 6, 2021
The January 2-16 rally divided into 12 stages has competitors traversing 7646 km. Stage 4 is, incidentally, the longest stage of the rally, spanning a total of 813 km.
Last year, HeroSports withdrew from the rally after the death of rally veteran team member Paulo Goncalves. The Portuguese rider, 40, had crashed halfway through the seventh stage and suffered a cardiac arrest.
This was Santosh’s seventh attempt at the Dakar Rally, considered the world’s most grueling off-road motorsport event. He was the first Indian to complete the race in 2015, and replicated the effort in two further editions. Santosh had a near-fatal accident during the 2013 Abu Dhabi desert challenge. He suffered third-degree burns to his neck after his Suzuki MX450X caught fire.