Almost-twin sisters

Martine and Carole are sisters, committed and united at the Rallye as in life. They are taking part in the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles du Maroc for the first time.

“In 2014, we travelled together to Chegaga in the Moroccan desert to walk and meditate. During this trip, we met a former Gazelle and decided that the Rallye sounded great. Then live events made us put the idea aside. A year ago, a friend asked us where we were at with the project. We looked at each other and we signed up right away.” 

For sponsors, they chose their family business, Dupessey & Co, working in freight transport in France and Europe for more than 50 years. “And we asked our friends and family to donate to Cœur de Gazelles instead of sponsoring us.”

Just one year apart, Martine and Carole are almost like twins: “We’re not that young, so we’re really looking to push ourselves through this rally. It’s a personal challenge, a bit of folly,” they laugh with a knowing look. To get in shape, they trained in Merzouga last November: “We saw that it was physically demanding so we hired a coach; we didn’t want to be pathetic.”

As they heard that some sisters stopped speaking to each other after doing the Rallye together, they have been working on that as well, including though to meditation: “Today we’re having fun, we don’t get worked up and we talk things through because it would be easy to get irritated. We laugh a lot.” The Gazelles of Team 172 (Martine DUPESSEY / Carole DUPESSEY - Dupessey & Co) have set up a code: we put our hand to our neck to relax. “And since we have the same taste in music, we have a special musical “starter” to get pumped and another to calm down. As well as Aïcha and ‘Où sont passés les Gazelles’”.