Dakar 2003. 14th stage: Dakhla-Luxor

Marc Coma third, making up positions
He is now thirteenth in the overall classification
  Marc Coma finished third in the fourteenth stage of the Rally Dakar that has been held today between Dakhla and Luxor. Thus, the Spanish rider has managed to equal his best partial classification in a stage, in his second participation.   Comas result could have been even more spectacular because he had an accident after jumping over a dune and lost time. Then he stopped to help Alain Duclos, who had a broken ankle. Coma pulled the beacon of the French rider, born in Mali, before moving on.  I crashed in an area with dunes that had small brows and then were suddenly cut. I jumped over a sand cliff higher than that truckhe points at a three meters high truck and I was lucky to land all right, but then I entered a rocky area that threw me down.  When I got up I saw a rider lying some fifteen meters away to my right, who was calling me Alain Duclos- and I went to help him. I pulled his beacon because he didnt know how to do it and then I went on, because I knew that he was O.K. ¿Could I win the stage without that stop?  No, I dont think so; its not my turn to win yet. Im here to learn and to finish the rally. I have enjoyed today and I felt very good, explained Coma when he arrived at the camp in Luxor and learned that he had finished third, only 3:08 adrift of the stage winner, Richard Sainct.   Coma is now thirteenth in the overall classification, ahead of Giovanni Sala, and there are only two stages and the last exhibition stage left for the finish in Sharm El Sheik.