El Morabity and Barnes take control
The second stage of this year’s Marathon des Sables was 39km with three checkpoints. The trio of top Moroccan runners remained at the top although finishing this second stage in a different order with 2016 winner Rachid El Morabity taking the stage win and adding eight valuable minutes.
Thomas Evans from the UK ran the stage in fourth place to keep within a few seconds of the leaders and still well in contention of third place.
| Place | Name | Time |
| 1st | Rachid El Morabity | 3:04:52 |
| 2nd | Abdelkader El Mouaziz | 3:12:15 |
| 3rd | Mohamed El Morabity | 3:14:31 |
Top Brits
| Place | Name | Time |
| 4th | Thomas Evans | 3:14:35 |
| 6th | Andy Symonds | 3:21:19 |
| 12th | Andrew Fargus | 3:49:52 |
Winner in 2015 Sweden’s Elisabet Barnes continued her strong MDS challenge and eclipsed Brazilian Fernanda Maciel by over eleven minutes. Barnes now has a seventeen minutes lead overall going into tomorrow’s third stage of 31.6km.
| Place | Name | Time | |
| 1st | Elisabet Barnes | 3:49:04 | 11th overall |
| 2nd | Fernanda Maciel | 4:00:42 | 19th overall |
| 3rd | Nathalie Mauclair | 4:04:14 | 20rd overall |
Other contenders :
Emilie Lecomte – 4th 4:31:11
Aziza Raji – 5th 4:41:37
Melanie Rousset – 7th 4:58:00
Top Brits
| Place | Name | Time |
| 67th | Jennifer Hill | 4:45:52 |
| 114th | Josephine Adams | 5:11:02 |
| 164th | Jane Keenan | 5:31:31 |
