From ski slopes to sand dunes, speed and daring have always been the driving force for Luc Alphand.

Alphand won the Dakar Rally on Sunday nine years after lifting the crystal globe of the Alpine skiing World Cup.

The long and boisterous career of the French daredevil started in Briancon, in the heart of the Alps, and in a washing machine.

"It was at the time of the lunar missions and me and my brother wanted to go to the moon. The washing machine looked like it came from outer space, so my brother closed the door behind me", he told journalists before the start of the race.

"My brother did not know how to open to the door but thankfully he didn't switch the machine on and my mother was not too far away."

Son of a mountain guide, the young Luc started skiing as soon he could walk, two years after his birth on August 6, 1965.

He won his first high standard race at 11 and clinched the downhill world junior title in Sestriere in 1983 but soon discovered the ski slopes were not a bed of roses.

The first part of his skiing career was plagued by injuries: fracture of the wrist and torn thumb ligaments in 1987, open fracture of the fibula in 1988, torn ligaments in the right knee in 1989, broken vertebra in 1990.

In 1993, he came out of a spectacular fall at Whistler Mountain in the US with a tear to the abdomen and detached knee ligaments but refused to bow out.

A year later, he won his first downhill at Val d'Isere and, in the winter of 1995, mastered the two World Cup downhill races on the "Streif" run at Kitzbuehel in Austria.

He was 29 and his career was just starting.

After being ranked number one in the world in men's downhill in 1995 and 1996, Alphand became in 1997 the first Frenchman to win the overall World Cup since Jean-Claude Killy in 1968.

Alphand retired from skiing at the end of the season but a year later he was entering his first Dakar Rally.

'Scary desert'

"I think I was addicted to speed through skiing. I had my daily dose of adrenalin through skiing. I had an opportunity to start car racing because of the name I had made through skiing and people heard that I loved car racing," he said in Dakar.

"The main goal at the beginning was to have fun. The first time in the car, I felt so safe with the body shell around me. The engine noise was great."

Alphand admits that his driving debut was as difficult as the beginning of his skiing career.

"It was a different world. I had a good advantage from the vision and the ability to analyse speeds but you need time to learn," he said.

"I was not really prepared for the desert. I was born for zero degrees and heights of 1,500 meters. Being outside in the winter was my life.

"The desert is a different world, 45 degrees C in the desert and more than 50 in the car is a real nightmare for me. The desert was scary for me at the start.

"The first Dakar was a nightmare. We finished in a helicopter two days before the finish and left the car in the desert. I said to myself I did not want to be there again."

Alphand however entered the Dakar again in 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 finishing fourth and then second in the last two races before being crowned on Sunday under the shadow of the two young boys killed on the roads of the rally.

"Of course, we are thinking of them and their families but there are accidents at home in front of schools. There are reckless drivers at home," he said on Saturday after organizers announced that Sunday's last stage would not be timed.

"I am happy to win the Dakar Rally. I have taken risks, I drive at 200 kph on roads I don't know."

Source: China Daily