After Months of Delay, Cycling Elections to be Held on July 14th, 2018
After months of delay, the Cycling Federation of Belize is holding elections at the University of the West Indies Open Campus in Belize City this Saturday. Two teams are in the running for the leadership seats in the federation. The current executive includes Orson Butler, who has his bid for the presidency and former politician and current president Dion Leslie is on Butler’s slate as his deputy. But a group of registered members of the federation say that cyclists have been clamouring for a change. Team Upward Bound includes Alexi Ordonez, Karen Vernon, John Burns, Shawn Duncan and three executive members who say they will bring new energy to the management of the sport in Belize. Having her eyes set on the vice presidency, Vernon says that they are optimistic that change will come at the annual general meeting even though one has not been held in the four years.
Karen Vernon, Vice President Candidate, Team Upward Bound
Karen Vernon
“We had to almost go to court for this. We had to get attorneys involved but now we have set a date and we have agreed on a date and it is this Saturday, July fourteenth at three p.m. at the UWI auditorium. We had a meeting with cyclists initially when we decided to do a slate and we were trying to get a feel of what they want, what are their gripes, what do you like, what do you not like and one of the things is that they definitely want more races. CFB is saying that they are not mandated to do anymore races. They have maybe six or seven races on the calendar; one is UWI sanctioned which is the national road championship. But they are not mandated to do anymore; they are happy with that. But the cyclists are asking for more races, so why not have more races. You train, you have to race; you have to test yourself. So that is what we want to offer; more races. And presently there is no constitution; the CFB is not governed by anything…there is not a constitution in place. So we both agree that that is one of the first things that will happen; whoever wins will deal with the constitution first off and get that together. There is structure to be done. The riders are asking for more transparency in the choosing of a national team; there has to be some criteria set in place so you know where you stand, you know when a test race is coming up. You know there are international races abroad and you know ahead of time, not two weeks, that you are representing Belize. So it is things like that the cyclists are asking for.”
The next executive of the CFB will be decided by two hundred and fifty-two registered members, including cyclists, team managers and support personnel.
