DAKAR Rally organisers have decided to cancel Stage 9 of the event on safety grounds.

The ninth stage of the event was set to comprise a 755km trek from Tupiza in Bolivia to Salta in Argentina, including a 242km competitive section.

Heavy rains have impacted the rally since it arrived in Bolivia late last week, with the weather turning areas of the overnight bivouac at Tupiza to mud.

STAGE 8: Price on the move as marathon stage wraps up

With storms forecast to hit the planned route for the ninth stage overnight, the rally will now bypass the competitive test and instead travel solely by road to its first bivouac in Argentina on the event.

“The stage is cancelled because there’s a lot of water in the bivouac today, and tomorrow we’re expecting some storms as well. These are not the best conditions to hold the stage,” the rally’s sporting director Marc Coma told AFP.

“We prefer not to take any risks,” he added.

Last year’s rally was also hit by weather problems after torrential rain, and then a huge mudslide, forced organisers to scrap two stages, while the opening stage of the 2016 event was cancelled after parts of the course were left flooded.

The 2015 event also courted controversy after organisers elected to press on with a stage despite heavy rain leaving Bolivia’s Uyuni salt flats partially flooded, the conditions hampering many competitors or forcing them to retire altogether.

The weather gods have been far more favourable in 2017, the only cancellation so far coming at the start of stage six where the wet weather forced the test to be cut in half for the motorcycle and quad bike competitors.

The decision leaves the rally with five more competitive sections before the finish in Cordoba, Argentina on January 20.