7 News Belize

The Winners Take It All
posted (March 29, 2016)
And, right after the riders crossed the finish line, 7News was there to talk with the winners and the losers about how it went.

Joel Borland, the first Belizean to cross the finish line right after the Padilla Brothers, told us that he was outnumbered on the final attack:

Reporter
"What can you say about today?"

Joel Borland, 3rd Place - 2016 Cross Country
"Definitely hard. Definitely a lot of suffering, I could tell you that. I just to say thanks to the Belizean public, because with motivation even with the people who doesn't even know me "Belize, Belize. Borland, Borland." Thank you very much, because without them I wouldn't stick there as much. The Guatemalans just overpowered and out fast me. I have no excuse."

Reporter
"At what point in the race did you figure it was going to be tough? Or you thought there was still a chance that you could beat them somehow?"

Joel Borland, 3rd Place - 2016 Cross Country
"When it came down to the 3 of us, I was still telling myself 'it would be a miracle if I could beat these two, you know.' I kept telling myself that 'I could.' I was waiting for an attack and I kept working with them because I didn't want them to attack so early and it came."

Alejandro Padilla, 1st Place - 2016 Cross Country
"Last week of February we had our first race. We've done 6 races up to know. So we got pretty decent leg speed and we are starting to get in shape. Next week we fly to California and we are racing a couple races there next weekend and then we have like 6 straight weekend of racing. So we are going well right now."

Julio Padilla, 2nd Place - 2016 Cross Country
"First we need to make the break, so we start make the brake and in Cayo I saw him coming and so I waited for him and since then, like just trying to pace a little bit, trying to reach a bigger gap until we got to Hattieville, tried to make a move and it worked perfect."

Reporter
"How do you feel about the performance of the Belizean riders in comparison with yourselves and what's your advice?"

Julio Padilla, 2nd Place - 2016 Cross Country
"They are riding strong. I don't know his name, Borland. He is riding very strong. There are strong guys here. So I think they are doing pretty well."

Alejandro Padilla, 1st Place - 2016 Cross Country
"He was just unfortunate that it was two of us against one. 2014, the same thing happened to me. It was the Mexicans and me and the Mexican beat me in the finish line. So that's how racing is. You need teammates out there as well. If you're outnumbered, especially with the way the wind was coming in today, pretty hard to go two against one."

Admiral John Borland, father of Joel Borland
"We promise next year to make bigger, stronger and harder and we will go back to the drawing board. We go back into training and we got to make Belizeans proud in bringing home next year. We came close this year, but it wasn't out time."

Winner Alejandro Padilla took home six thousand dollars cash plus a bunch of trophies, as well as the coveted garland and other prizes. His brother Julio got three thousand dollars cash for his second place finish - while Joel Borland got two thousand dollars cash for third.

The Padilla brothers were 11 minutes slower than the 2008 record.

In total, about 45 riders finished out of the 82 that started. Foreign riders took four of the first 6 places.

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