The 24th Female Cross Country was scheduled for Sunday May 19th but tonight Belize's female cyclists are crestfallen because the event has been abruptly postponed. Who's to blame? Well, you can safely chalk it up to the ongoing upheaval in the sport ….
A press release was sent out by the Belize Cycling Association stating that an injunction has been brought against Hilly Martinez – the President of the Belize Olympic and Commonwealth games association and the interim executive of the Belize Cycling Association. The injunction is from president of the Association, Emil Moreno. "As a result the Female Cross Country race and other upcoming events have been cancelled until the matter gets straightened out."
That leaves the lady cyclists very let down and understandably very angry. Defending Champion Kaya Cattouse told us how she feels:
Kaya Cattouse - Defending Champion
"First and foremost receiving this news today was - I really don't know how to explain it; you have been training for a race and you're the defending champion, you're looking for that repeat and it's just postponed. I don't even know if the word is 'postponed' because it's just cancelled there will be no female cross country this year. Going into this race, I was not as prepared as I would have liked to be being that I was on the Football National Team in January, February and March we went to Costa Rica for the Central American games. I got back on my bike when we came back and I am as ready as from then to now can have me be, so the preparation is still there. My teammates and I are very disappointed because we already had our strategy, we trained and we got in the hills, the speed and we did what we could have done to prepare for this race and to just know that it has been cancelled. It's not only this race, next month it will affect all the other categories of cyclist, the elite cyclist, the junior cyclist because from what we're hearing the National Road Champion has cancelled as well until the matter is resolved in court. As a cyclist this is hard to say - it is hard to go to another country and race because you need an eval from your association and if there is none then how can we race. Really and truly I don't care which slate gets in, who is the president, who is the committee - all we want is to race and to race fairly, that is the bottom line, whoever it may be it doesn't matter we just want to race that's all."
Moreno had tried to serve the injunction before Saturday's protest election for the Western Region was held, but that was ineffective. He won the first election and did not contest the second. Without a place in a regional executive, he cannot be National President.
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