How a skiing world champion became a Dakar legend

Back in August 1997, a momentous decision was made among friends. One of alpine skiing’s best names, with barely a handful of circuit racing meetings under his belt, was going to embark on the Dakar Rally.

If you know your alpine skiing, then Luc Alphand will surely need no introduction. To those less au fait about the winter sport, three podiums on the toughest rally raid, including a solitary victory in 2006 with Mitsubishi may well do it, instead.

His journey to the Dakar stemmed from an urge to do something different away from the pistes of central Europe whilst retaining the competitive fire inside him.

Having cut his teeth in one extreme sport, it seemed therefore only logical to try his hand at another, albeit at the other end of the spectrum.

“It sounds incredible, but the story starts with a dinner I was invited to at Le Castellet circuit in France, for the French Porsche Carrera Cup,” explains Alphand.

“And during this dinner, we said: ‘OK, let’s go to Dakar!’ and I said: ‘what, are you kidding?’. This was at the end of August.

“The guy who I was with was the marketing director of Sonata – an importer of Porsches and Mitsubishis – at the time, and he said: ‘I know where to find a car, we have some sponsors in skiing and car racing so we can get the budget.

“So, we started our first Dakar like that!”

Having barely driven any racing cars at all, let alone one which was due to contest the gruelling three-week Dakar from Paris to Africa, Alphand was admittedly diving in at the deep end.

His only off-road racing experience by this point had come on largely familiar ground, with a guest appearance in the Andros Trophy at Serre Chevalier, while still an active skier in 1995. But sand and snow are like chalk and cheese. And Alphand would have to get at least some training done before taking the ceremonial start in the French capital just four months later.

“I had no experience of driving in the sand, nothing,” says Alphand. “Only with my Jeep off-road at home. We have something a little bit north of Paris, which is called the Sea Sand, and I went there one day with Jean-Pierre Fontenay who won the Dakar in 1998, to practice a little bit.

“But he told me: ‘you only need to know one thing, and that’s how to get the car out of the sand!’ so he stuck the car deep in the sand and it was up to me to get the car out.”

A fairly inauspicious start then to what would eventually result in an overall victory on the Dakar some nine years later, beating none other than Mr Dakar himself, Stéphane Peterhansel in the same machinery.

Alphand’s first experience of the Dakar came during a period where the rally raid still stuck relatively true to its roots. This was the “Paris-Dakar”, not just the Dakar and it began as usual on New Year’s Day in a freezing cold Place du Trocadéro; the Eiffel Tower providing a glorious background as the crews set off for the boat in the south of France.

Accommodation was also pretty old-school too. Back in the day, there were no hotels for crews; you stayed in the bivouac, camping out in tents for the duration of the rally.

Those aspects bring with them a sense of nostalgia and longing for the past among some competitors and fans but, as Alphand describes, it wasn’t all happy on that first voyage into the unknown.

“We retired two days before the finish of the rally [in 1998], and everything happened on that first Dakar,” Alphand begins.

“We spent 24 hours stuck in the desert, we were brought back to the bivouac in the helicopter, we were driving in the night. And I said then that I would never do the Dakar again…it’s now my 26th Dakar but after that first one, I swore I’d never go back.

“We got car jacked in the desert; we saw people shooting guns in front of us in the night, and the desert is so big, it was very scary. There were sandstorms, driving over the dunes in pitch blackness and there was a lot of stress.

“But then, the second Dakar was perfect, we had no issues, we finished 15th overall and first in the Marathon class.”

Stories like these were part of the reason the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) elected to cancel the event in 2008 and ultimately relocate to South America for a 10-year period beginning in 2009.

By the time the Dakar settled into its new home, Alphand’s career was over after what can only be described as a brush with paralysis following a bike accident on the Rand’Auvergne.

He broke his neck and dislocated two vertebrae, after which he called time on his racing career a year later.

“It was sh*t,” says Alphand. “I was almost disabled after the surgery, so I was really close to being in a wheelchair and that’s something you can’t forget.

“When you are a sportsman, your body is your work tool, and at that moment, I thought everything was finished, even my life.

“But I was lucky that they were able to fix the dislocation, not totally as it was before because I had the two vertebrae broken. I could walk and I could ski so that was the most important thing for me.

“It was a really bad memory of course, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Then I said to myself: ‘phew, now I can walk again’ and I did some testing, mainly with X-raid with the Mini; I raced a little bit but then I stopped.

“OK it’s a little bit sad to stop, but walking is nice and living normally is also nice.”

Sometimes there’s a lightbulb moment in elite athletes that tells them they’ve taken enough risks in their lives to know when to stop and with Alphand, that certainly comes across with regards to competition.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t indulge himself in ‘enjoying life’ by skiing fast with his three children (Sam and Nils are both downhill skiers for France, while daughter Estelle switched allegiance to Sweden – the birth country of her mother – in 2018).

Having survived his first Dakar Rally in 1998, Alphand enjoyed far better fortunes 12 months later, recording a respectable 16th place finish. Two further retirements followed behind the wheel of the Schlesser-Renault buggy in 2000 and 2001 (the latter a controversial affair as Jean-Louis Schlesser was penalized for deliberately delaying main rival Hiroshi Masuoka in the closing stages).

Three top 10 finishes then followed before being signed by the factory Mitsubishi team, which boasted a formidable lineup of Peterhansel, Masuoka, Andrea Mayer and reigning bike winner Nani Roma.

“I could never have imagined how the story would unfold, from the first decision to do the Dakar to this point,” admits Alphand.

“When I finished skiing, I wanted to do another sport, just for fun, not for the pressure of winning like in skiing. But then, I started to have the same behaviour as before; I started training, getting ready mentally and then I climbed [the ladder].

“You need four or five Dakars to know how to cross dunes, to work with a navigator and to drive. Grégoire de Mevius taught me how to brake with the left foot, because I was not doing this!

“[Ari] Vatanen also told me that I had to do this, and then when I learned how to do this, I realized: ‘sh*t, this is so much faster’ and I took the first stage win in a diesel car in 2003 with BMW, fighting with Vatanen in an open desert for 200km. It was a ‘pinch me moment’. I never imagine myself fighting like this with Vatanen; my environment was Kitzbühel or Garmisch-Partenkirchen.”

Come 2005, Alphand found he was learning more and more. It’s hard not to when you have someone like Peterhansel in the same team. However, as Alphand reveals, the lessons Peterhansel gave weren’t always to be trusted.

“Peterhansel is like the prototype of drivers,” says Alphand. “Because he is fast, efficient, smart and also very reliable. He knows where to attack and where not to.

“And I would talk to him every morning, but he was always lying to me! He would talk about tire pressures, the pace of the race today, everything, and then in 2005 when I was fighting with him for the win, I said to myself: ‘OK, don’t listen to Peterhansel’.

“It was the same story in 2006, we were pushing all the way, both of us. I brought a [suspension] arm two stages from the finish, but he did the same on the next stage and I won which was amazing.”

Beating Peterhansel at his own game in the same equipment takes something and Alphand will always remember the day he completed his transition from amateur Dakar competitor doing the rally for fun to winning as a consummate professional.

The pair rekindled their battle in 2007, but Alphand was denied a chance to take the fight all the way to the finish as Mitsubishi team orders meant that the order was maintained as just three minutes split the two Pajeros entering the final stages.

“This was a bit frustrating in 2007 because I could have had another win, and I wanted to keep on pushing but Mitsubishi said that we had to hold position two days from the end.

“But the goal was already over my expectations, winning was the best and driving along the Lac Rose was a great memory.”

Since hanging up his helmet, Alphand has not veered too far from the Dakar. In fact, via his role with France Télévisions, he is at the center of the action, more so than when he was competing.

“I’m in the second-best spot on the Dakar; I’m in the helicopter looking over the competitors, and I can fully enjoy the rally from that point of view.

“It’s amazing, I still enjoy it; I can still see some really nice landscapes, some nice countries and can follow the race and the first 15 runners.

“For me, I have no frustrations with stopping, but I am there, and I have a lot of friends and do my best to do the show and share with people the spirit of the Dakar.”

Alphand will be on the Dakar for his 27th edition again this winter, performing his TV duties as usual, and once more conveying his passion and love for the discipline which gave him his second career at the top-level of sport.