Daniel Sanders prepares to redo the Dakar after shattered elbow and botched surgery

The 28-year-old Australian dirt bike sensation was on track to win the Dakar Rally. To endurance riders or drivers, The Dakar is what Pipeline is to surfers, or the Tour de France is for cyclists.

One year ago, Sanders was hurtling along a rancidly cold Riyadh freeway at 4am to start the seventh stage of the 2022 Dakar. He’d won three of the first six stages. At 110 kms an hour he took a peek at his directions, then BOOM.

An unmarked U-turn road appeared from nowhere. Sanders hit the brakes. Too late. He slammed into the kerb out of nowhere.

Sanders stared at the stars and checked his vitals. Legs. Yep, feel them. Lungs, yep, air coming back. Arms. Damn, one of them feels like it has sticks floating down a river.

Daniel had smashed his elbow into a thousand pieces. The kerb didn’t fare much better, obliterated by the impact of a human at 20Gs.

For Sanders, his Dakar, the holy grail, the would-be grand triumph, was like the kerb. Rubble.

It would get worse.

Sanders landed in a Saudi Arabian hospital, where they pinned his arm back together.

Unfortunately, Sanders got a surgeon who may well have gone to the same medical school as The Simpsons’ resident doctor, master of the botched surgery, Dr Nick Riviera.

It was only when Sanders called home after the surgery and spoke to an expert did the horror show become apparent.

“The doc had put the pins in the wrong way, there was still bone missing, just a massive hole,” Sanders says.

“If I left it like that, it’s a career-ending injury.

“My heart dropped, I felt so sick.”

Lesser souls would have taken survival as the cue to find less dangerous ways to navigate life.

But for people like Sanders, a race like the Dakar is there to be conquered. Twelve months after the wicked crash, he’s back for another crack, the same way he’s always ridden. At full throttle.

Sanders, or ‘Chucky’ to his mates, grew up with adventure in his veins and fear left at the front gate of his family’s 120-acre apple farm in Three Bridges, in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, an hour east of Melbourne.

In-between working out which of the 140,000 trees had Royal Galas as opposed to Pink Ladys, Sanders fell in love with dirt bikes, especially when Santa came burning down the chimney with one when he was eight.

“That Christmas morning, I was out in the paddock learning how to ride around some pickets dad put out,” Sanders tells CODE Sports from a garage on the same property, now full with trophies.

“Hearing the noise of the bike, feeling the power when sitting on it, it was pretty addictive!”

As one with a machine immediately, Sanders rose through the teenage ranks, winning all kinds of off-road dirt bike events, over jumps, through dirt, through forests. By the end of high school, opportunity stared Chucky in the face, and his parents didn’t mind if he winked back.

“I told teachers I was going to become a professional motorbike rider,” Sanders says with a smile.

“They talked to my mum at one parent teacher night, mum was like, yeah, let him go with his dreams! The thinking was, ‘I‘ve only got so many years, say between 18 to 21 to have a crack and if you make it, you make it’.”

And here’s the beauty in Sanders’ story. Nothing was handed on a platter. Daniel’s parents were happy for him to pursue dreams, but the right way. The boy had to become a man through his own wallet.

“I had to go buy a bike, pay for everything. Work on the farm, do eight hours, then go ride. All on me. The fall back was working on the apple farm.”

A decade on, the fall back hasn’t been required.

Sanders got his first team contract at 20, and burst through local borders onto the international stage. In 2019, he won the individual title at the prestigious International Six Day Enduro event in Portugal.

This opened up more options, with sponsors lining up. In 2021, he went for the biggest challenge there is, the Dakar.

The ‘Dakar’ holds its name from the time-honoured race from Paris to Dakar, Senegal, which changed course in 2009 when it was deemed too unsafe to ride through certain North African nations. (As if travelling at 130kms an hour for eight hours a day through sand dunes wasn’t rough enough.)

The event went to South America for a decade, before it moved to the sands of Saudi Arabia in 2020. It’s now simply called ‘The Dakar’.

Sanders, forever a thrillseeker, was drawn to it. Enduro events, which he had mastered, are multiple day events, but stages are short and sharp, like the terrain. The Dakar is a monster. The terrain is still imposing, but the sheer effort needed to stay dialled in over 8000-plus kilometres in a two-week period, on minimal sleep, is like no other challenge.

Plus, there’s a road book. For bike riders, the road book is a set of scrolling instructions which guide competitors through the wilderness of the Saudi desert. It takes incredible skill. Think of us normal road users, told not to look down at our phones right? Distraction, yeah? These riders have to look at the road book while flying over blind sandhills for between 400 and 800 kilometres a day.

“The risk is massive, going at high speeds, looking down at the road book, trying to dodge objects, reading the terrain,” Sanders says.

“And you can’t cheat the road book. You have to take it all in.

“It’s easily one of the riskiest sports out there. Putting it all on the line every day, just to finish is a massive accomplishment.”

Another Australian rider, the legendary Toby Price, has won two Dakars, in 2016 and 2019.

Inspired, and having conquered enduro racing, Sanders locked in to the idea of becoming a king of The Dakar.

In 2021, he finished fourth at his first attempt. Incredible for a rookie.

With the benefit of experience, Sanders prepared for 2022 with meticulous detail, spending eight months locked in, hours upon hours on his bike, plus punishing gym sessions and countless more cycling.

“Big fan of getting into the lycra,” laughs Sanders.

“(The Dakar) is two weeks of mayhem. So you need a lot of endurance and mental strength training.”

Off the perfect prep, Sanders won three of the first six stages of the 2022 Dakar before it all evaporated on that cool Riyadh morning when he took on a concrete kerb at 110kms an hour.

One look down at his road book. One split second mishap. All over.

This preparation has been anything but perfect. After the botched surgery in Saudi Arabia, Sanders returned home and it took another four surgeries to save his elbow, and career.

Training for the 2023 Dakar kept on getting delayed.

“This will be the toughest race of my career. Only started training properly in November. How to prepare for Dakar in one month?” he asks.

No one knows the answer, because no one has really tried it.

Sanders, with his sense of adventure, is comfortable though. He’s not expecting to win this one. Instead, 2023 will be about finishing, and winning a few of the 14 stages, starting on New Year’s Eve.

“I’m just going to wing it, and natural talent will kick in,” he says, almost flippantly.

“A LOT of things can happen in that race.”