2 weeks ago, the Belize Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation held the 2014 Bodybuilding Championships.

 

As we've told you, Rigo Vellos was crowned Mr. Belize for the 3rd time in a row, and veteran Gina Lovell was chosen as this year's Miss Body Fitness. The tournament went off without a hitch, and it was well supported by the public who went out to see the parade of chiselled bodies.

 

But, all that ends well, is not always well: defending Body Fitness champion Cricel Castillo did not compete. She’s been banned for two years.

She spoke with our colleagues from KREM News about it and hearing those comments The Federation jumped to action and called the media for an impromptu press briefing. Daniel Ortiz has both sides:

 

So, while those are all the allegations, counter allegations and the timeline, there is also a social dimension to Castillo's 2 year suspension.  Through assiduous social media engineering, she has quite a following of fans and supporters who are hoping that she will continue to be a competitive presence in her sport. 

 So, what’s the fan base fallout?  Today, we tried to examine that with Castillo and the Federation:

 

Getting back to that allegation of misuse of the Federation’s name, today, we spoke with Hilly Martinez, the President of the National Olympic Committee.

 He told us that the NOC does not deal with athletes, only federations and Associations. He told us that when Moody made a request for funds for the Arnold Classic, the NOC had weighty deliberations on whether or not to honor that request. That's because Bodybuilding is not an Olympic Sport. Martinez told us that after meeting with Moody, the NOC did grant them funding to be used for the Arnold Classic. He notes particularly that after the funds are handed over, it is for the executive members - in this case, Stanley Moody - to decide how it will be used.

And, as we've showed you, we put that question Moody if he misused funds which were to be allocated for Castillo. He has categorically denied that.