CATCHING UP WITH KIRSTEN LANDMAN ABOUT 2020 DAKAR DEBUT

Last Sunday Kirsten Landman took her place at the Dakar Rally start line for the first time in her career. She signed up for the event with a very specific dream of becoming the first South African woman to finish the Dakar. 

While the rider is more renowned for her enduro skills, her ability to endure some of the world’s toughest terrain is the quality that many believe will get her to the finish line of the Dakar this year. 

We catch up with Landman on rest day before she continues her journey of breaking completely new ground in her career:

Take us through some of the moments that have stood out to you most over the past six stages. 

My favourite stage has been stage five. I really liked the tight dunes, riding between the camel-grass and how demanding the navigation was. 

With mentors like Dakar legend Joey Evans, you’d received a lot of information about what this event is like. How does the actual experience of the Dakar differ from what you’d expected it to be like? 

In all honesty, I knew the Dakar would be fast – I just didn’t expect it to be this fast. I’ve followed the event for years and it looked like there were stages where guys were really battling to get through some of the terrain. But maybe the slower, tough stuff is still coming. Let’s see! 

What has been the greatest challenge you’ve had to overcome so far? 

The speed! It’s phenomenally high. I was going 130 km/h yesterday, and other guys came past me like I was standing still. Six years ago, I was involved in a high-speed accident and paid my dues for that. Having walked the road to recovery, I’ve developed a bit of a fear of high speeds. So out there in the dust I’m constantly fighting myself – I want to push the pace and go faster, but at the same time I don’t want to take that kind of risk in the dust. It brings back a lot of emotion from my accident; it feels like all the skeletons are coming out the closet. I just have to keep reminding myself that my main priority is just to finish.

After a few hard days in the saddle, do you think that this a once-off goal you want to tick off or do you see yourself actually pursuing a career in this sport? 

If you ask me that right now – definitely a once-off goal I want to tick off! I laugh about that because, man, this event is so fast! It’s making me really appreciate hard enduro – I love how physically demanding that sport is. Rally racing pushes me completely out of my comfort zone – I feel unsafe the entire time. But who knows, maybe after a few months I’ll say something completely different and decide that this is the direction that I want my career in motorsport to take. It’s difficult to answer when you’re in the thick of it.

You’ve got through many extreme events in your career. How does the endurance that this race demands differ from any of the other hard-core races you’ve conquered?

Hard enduro is extremely physically exhausting and you have to be really, really fit to finish a race. I’m fresh off the Roof of Africa, and that was so tough! To compare the 12 hours I spent on the bike there to what I do here is completely different. After Roof my hands were full of blisters and my skin was chaffed raw behind my knee guards. I was physically finished! At the Dakar, I don’t even finish my camelback every day and don’t eat half as much because I’m burning much less calories. But mentally, Dakar is so much more demanding. It’s actually emotionally exhausting for me especially. There’s so much concentration required to navigate, and when you’re out there on those long, straight roads you have so much time to think. I’m mentally finished when I get back to the bivouac every day!