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The popularity of the Paris-Dakar rally in the 1980s drew on both a growing market for new adventure sports in France and nostalgia for colonial-era narratives of desert exploration. Since its inception, the event has provided a spectacle of motorised speed, physical suffering, technical prowess and logistical expertise, set against a backdrop of splendid scenery. The race has also been criticised for transforming some of the poorest locations in the world into a playground for a (predominantly) Western and wealthy elite and for the death toll that it has incurred in its wake. Such criticisms followed the rally along its various African itineraries and on its transposition to South America in 2009. In its early versions, the Paris-Dakar was the vehicle for the nostalgic re-enactment of French colonial-era exploits in Africa, and the subject of virulent criticism for its neo-colonial connotations and material effects. The contemporary ‘Dakar’ emerges in this analysis as a demonstration of the ‘deterritorialising’ potential of the sports-media nexus, with its opponents attesting to its contribution to the global disenfranchisement of local communities.

In France, conflicts over nationhood in a globalised world are refracted through competing visions and models of the role of sport in society. The first model holds that sport has intrinsic virtuous qualities and acts as a space for the development and performance of Republican values. This model contends that the sport should be organised by and for the people through the democratic institutions of the State. The second vision recognises sport as primarily a form of entertainment for the masses, dictated by television corporations and media outlets, with sports stars constructed primarily to further commercial imperatives. In the back-and-forth between these rival visions, a range of issues are played out in the sporting sphere, from France’s postcolonial heritage to its post-industrial future, through concerns over Americanisation, corporatisation, immigration and commemoration.

Italy’s Valentino Rossi is the most popular motorcycle racer of his day. This chapter examines Rossi’s dominance in motorsport, while also providing the reader with a broad understanding of motorsport, as well as the risk involved in motorsport. Rossi has served as an international ambassador for his sport, helping to popularize motorcycle racing around the globe.