Portuguese motorcyclist (1979?2020)
Paulo Goncalves
(
[?pawlu
?o?salv??]
; 5 February 1979 ? 12 January 2020) was a
Portuguese
rally racing
motorcycle rider. He won the
FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship
in 2013.
Early life
[
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Goncalves was born on 5 February 1979, in
Gemeses
, a civil parish in the
Braga District
city of
Esposende
in
Portugal
.
[1]
Rally biking
[
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]
Goncalves won 23 titles in motocross, supercross and enduro, and won the
FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship
in 2013, before being a runner-up in 2014.
[1]
He started participating in the
Dakar Rally
in 2006, and participated in thirteen of them.
[1]
He raced on African, South American and Asian continents and won three stages.
[2]
He finished among the top ten competitors, and was the runner-up in 2015,
Marc Coma
being the only competitor ahead of him.
[1]
Between 2006 and 2009,
[3]
and also from 2013 to 2019, Goncalves raced for the
Honda
team in the Dakar Rally, before moving to the
Hero MotoCorp
team in 2020.
[4]
From 2010 to 2012 he was with the BMW-owned
Husqvarna Motorcycles
team outfit.
[3]
He was also a member of the
KTM
team during his career.
[1]
During the 2020 edition of the Dakar rally the engine stalled in the third stage, and its withdrawal was announced, which was corrected about three hours later, as Goncalves was trying to repair his vehicle at the same time as he was waiting for his team to arrive for assistance.
[1]
Due to his taste for high speeds, he was nicknamed "Speedy", which was a reference to the
Looney Tunes
character
Speedy Gonzales
.
[1]
Death and tributes
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Goncalves crashed during the seventh stage of the
2020 Dakar Rally
in
Saudi Arabia
, at 276 km.
[1]
He was found unconscious, resuscitated at the scene, and then flown by helicopter to a hospital in Layla, where he was pronounced dead.
[1]
[5]
He was less than a month away from his 41st birthday.
[1]
[6]
After his death, the municipality of Esposende issued a note of regret, highlighting his career as a racer, and regarded him as an Esposende ambassador to the world.
[7]
His death was also mourned by the President of Portugal,
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
, who stated that Goncalves "died trying to achieve the dream of winning one of the hardest and most dangerous rally events in the world, in which he was always a worthy representative of Portugal, reaching second place in 2015".
[8]
References
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