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1 / France’s Sylvie<br />
Freches, 43, a<br />
six-time Gazelle<br />
competitor<br />
2 / Fifty-year-old<br />
Lydie Foucher<br />
from France<br />
3 / Five of the<br />
teams competed<br />
on nimble<br />
quad bikes.<br />
including oxytocin, that make it easier to<br />
create a strong kinship, says Gervais.<br />
The women describe it far less clinically.<br />
“The rally is a bit of a drug,” says<br />
Jeanette James, a 54-year-old British<br />
driving instructor who has competed<br />
in the event nine times. “You have<br />
hundreds of women who have gotten<br />
off their backsides and said, ‘I’m going<br />
to go do something exceptional<br />
with my life.’ Being in that environment<br />
together is amazing.”<br />
ALL FOR ONE, ONE FOR ALL<br />
After driving to find the day’s<br />
checkpoint, the Gazelles come together<br />
at a base camp most nights. They<br />
shower in mobile trailers and rehash the<br />
latest trials and triumphs over plates of<br />
rice and chicken tagine cooked by staff.<br />
Post-dinner, they crowd around tables,<br />
poring over their maps, before heading<br />
off to sleep in tents. Conversations about<br />
the evils of camel grass (a hardened<br />
patch of turf that looks soft but feels like<br />
driving over a block of concrete) are<br />
peppered with excited reports of hearing<br />
from their husbands, wives, and kids<br />
(Gazelles can receive e-mail messages<br />
from home via staff but not send<br />
them—they hand over their phones at<br />
the start of the race). In line for the<br />
porta-shower one night, I listen in as two<br />
women—a blonde with a heavy Austrian<br />
accent and dirty-olive hiking pants, and<br />
a brunette in aviators speaking a mix of<br />
French and English—cycle through<br />
topics that included the then-upcoming<br />
French presidential election, “cowashing”<br />
your hair with conditioner<br />
instead of shampoo, and their 401(k)s.<br />
The divisive nationalism that is so<br />
prominent in many of the women’s home<br />
countries fades away amid the rolling<br />
dunes. Women from all countries<br />
and native tongues simply connect.<br />
“Out here, everyone feels different but<br />
so alike,” says 27-year-old French civil<br />
engineer Amélie Mourneau. She and her<br />
coworker Tiphaine Danguy, 29, met and<br />
bonded with Guylaine Robert, 40, and<br />
Karine Elward, 38, both from Canada,<br />
during one of the nights when the racers<br />
camped out in the desert instead of the<br />
base camp. As darkness set in, they<br />
discussed the day’s obstacles, blasted<br />
electronica music in hopes of scaring off<br />
scorpions, and laughed over the<br />
differences in their accents. “It is like we<br />
are one person, and we all feel the<br />
spirit of the Gazelle,” Amélie told me.<br />
“The spirit of the Gazelle” is a phrase<br />
that comes up often, and it refers to<br />
the camaraderie and willingness most<br />
participants have to go the extra mile,<br />
often quite literally, to help out a<br />
competitor. It wasn’t unusual to see<br />
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