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The Dakar Rally retained its deadly reputation despite a change of continent when the body of Pascal Terry, a 49-year-old French motorcycle rider, was found early on Wednesday morning.

"We are saddened to learn that Pascal Terry was found dead in the night from Jan 6 to 7 at 0210 am," race organisers said in a statement.

"He was in a place very hard to access in the middle of heavy bushes, some 15 metres from his bike. He had his helmet off and had found some shadow."

The rider from Normandy had been missing since Sunday's second stage and his body was recovered about 100 metres off the road and 190 kilometres south of where he had started in Santa Rosa.

Local police were opening an investigation into the fatality.

A spokesman for the organisers told the Argentine cable news channel TN that Terry had radioed on Sunday to say he had run out of fuel but contacted them again shortly afterwards to say he had got some from another competitor.

Later the same day he sent an emergency signal and a search was launched, although it was interrupted when organisers were wrongly informed that he had turned up at the finishing point for the rally's fourth stage in Neuquen.

The Dakar, originally conceived 31 years ago as a trans-Saharan race from Paris to the Senegalese capital, has now claimed the lives of 26 competitors and 25 others including two children hit by vehicles in 2006.

This year's 30th edition is being held in Argentina and Chile instead of Africa because of security concerns in Mauritania which forced the cancellation of last year's event.

The old Dakar was one of the most gruelling and dangerous challenges in motorsport.

In 2007, two motorcyclists died while competing on the Dakar rally in Africa: Elmer Symons of South Africa and France's Eric Aubijoux.

This year's race, which started in Buenos Aires last week, has also left British driver Paul Green and his navigator Matthew Harrison in serious condition in hospital after their car overturned during Saturday's first stage.

Reuters