Dakar Rally rider Carles Falcon has died a week after his Stage 2 crash

TwinTrail Racing Team’s Carles Falcon has lost his life after sustaining ‘irreversible’ neurological injuries in a crash on the second stage of this year’s Dakar Rally last week.

The 45-year-old was nearing the end of the day’s racing from Al Henakiyah to Al Duwadimi on 7 January when he fell heavily from his Rally2-class KTM. Medical teams arrived quickly but found him unconscious and with no pulse.

He was revived and flown to a nearby hospital, before being transferred to a hospital in Riyadh. Falcon had suffered a spinal fracture and reportedly broke several other bones, and was kept in an induced coma to combat an oedema around his brain.

The rider was later repatriated to Spain, but very sadly he passed away yesterday after doctors concluded there was no hope of him recovering.

“It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Spanish rider Carles Falcon from his family,” said the Dakar’s organisers in a statement, before adding their “most sincere condolences to his family and friends.”

Falcon - who was competing in the Dakar for the second time having finished 68th in 2022 - is the first rider to lose his life in the event since Pierre Cherpin in 2021.

Image: TwinTrail Racing Team