A very unfavorable weather situation also affected the ceremonial start of the Eco Africa Race 2026. It will not take place in the end. The competitors will start the competition directly with the first stage.
The organizer of the Eco Africa Race 2026 event planned the ceremonial start ceremony for 14:00 on January 25, 2026. After it, the competitors were supposed to complete a ten-kilometer-long Prologue of the competition, which was also supposed to indicate what the starting order would be for the initial stage from Tangier to Bousaid.
After nature once again showed its strength, the organizer had to change its plans after consulting with local authorities. The weather conditions in Tangier are extremely difficult, with gusts of wind reaching speeds of up to 70 kilometers per hour. Such unstable and highly unpredictable weather caused the authorities to not recommend starting the entire competition with a ceremonial ceremony and the subsequent Prologue, due to the safety of the organizers themselves, participants, their entourage, but also all the fans present.
The starting ceremony and Prologue will ultimately not take place and the competitors will start the event with the first stage. Of course, this decision also affected the only Slovak crew in the starting field of the car category, Martin Benek and Marek Sýkora, who will compete in the competition in cooperation with the Taurus T3 Maxi buggy of the Slovak Norwit Racing Team.
“You can’t control the weather, and that’s exactly what happened in Tangier. Of course, we understand the decision of the organizer and local authorities, safety must always come first. The wind is really strong and there are many tents broken and overturned all over the bivouac, and the weather is really bad. Well, sometimes competitions are like that, you can’t control nature. But we all believe that, as they say, a difficult start will ultimately bring a good and fun competition. Tomorrow we’re going for it, we have a long way to go to Dakar,” Martin Benko assessed.
Tomorrow (January 26, 2026), all participants will face the first stage of the competition, which will go from the city of Tangier to the city of Bousaid. When overcoming it, all competitors will face a track with a total length of more than eight hundred kilometers. The mentioned number also includes a measured section of almost ninety kilometers. We will closely monitor how the only Slovak crew of the Taurus T3 Max buggy, Martin Benka and Marek Sýkor, will fare and we will inform you about everything after it is over.