Coma wakes up to Dakar bike rally title

Spanish MotoX Enduro rider Marc Coma has won the two-wheeled discipline in the annual Lisbon-Dakar Rally. The thirty-year-old beat Frenchman Cyril Despres and 91 other motorbikers (93 in total) in the 9043km race across seven countries.

Coma took the top of the podium with a time of 55:27:17, followed by Despres 1:13:29 later.

Despres, one of the favourites for the win and last year's winner, was hit hard by a big crash 273 kilometres in, at the between Tan Tan and Zouerat. Suffering a dislocated shoulder, he continued anyway, taking second place after unfortunately losing a huge 40 degrees of his orientation in the final stages of the race.

Featuring over half a thousand entries riding one of three competitive classes - bikes, cars and trucks - the 28th "Dakar Rally" ran this year from Lisbon, Portugal to Dakar, Senegal. Considered the top rally event worldwide, the off-road race is almost entirely desert, often leading riders astray. In 1982, Marc Thatcher (son of then prime minister Margaret) went missing for six days before being rescued by a Hercules search plane 50km off course.

In 2005, the gruelling test of endurance ran from Barcelona, Spain to Dakar, and from Clermont-Ferrand, France to Dakar the previous year.