By CGTN Africa’s Sport Correspondent Saddique Shaban
Botswana’s motocross rider Vincent Crosbie has pulled out of the 2018 Dakar Rally after suffering a hand injury. The 27-year-old became the first rider from his country to compete and finish the 2017 Dakar Rally.
He’d be tearing the earth apart in his monstrous bike in preparation for the upcoming 2018 Dakar Rally. But Vincent Crosbie’s practice bike is unusually clean and idle.
Most of his contemporaries are heading to Peru for the 40th Edition of the Dakar rally. But Crosbie is not. He’s being assisted to adjust to his new situation.
“Actually you guys are the first ones to know about this. It’s something that has happened literally a few days ago. We still are telling our main sponsors first about the story. It is always nice to tell them in person before you can let the media, the public know,” Crosbie told CGTN’s Saddique Shaban.
During the interview, his hand was freshly and heavily bandaged in a cast after a short stint in a South African Hospital.
“My trailer at home landed on my hand. I got my hand wedged between the trailer and it broke of the bones in my hand. So basically the three metacarpals, I had two pins put in my hand which hopefully will come out in the next month or so and then trying to get fit and ready for the next year,” Crosbie said.
The 27-year-old rider made history by becoming the first Mtswana to compete at the Dakar Rally. It was a dream come true for a young man whose late father introduced him to the sport at a tender age.
However, he won’t be making a return in 2018 after conquering the event in 2017. But he’s not out of options.
“We are looking at the Silkway Rally which is in China, which is the first time for motorbikes next year,” Crosbie said.
“It is something we have looked at and we are going to be doing our homework in the next few months. [The] Merzouga Rally in Morocco is definitely a hard race, the sand dunes there are massive and everything is the same as Dakar.”
In the meantime, Vincent, a building contractor, has gone back to his profession. He hopes to forget about his injury and missing out on the Dakar rally.
“I am still young. I [have] still got a lot of races ahead of me, so we just have to take it as it comes and take the good with the bad,” Crosbie said.
The man from Nadeli says he will be keenly following the 40th Dakar Rally proceedings from Peru, Bolivia and Argentina.
He may have injured his arm in a freak accident, but the setback has not broken Vincent Crosbie’s dreams. In fact, he says, he cannot wait to get back on his bike and take on the world during the 2018 Silkway Rally in China.
