Junior athletes to Guatemala

On Thursday, June tenth thirty-six youths will be departing Belize by boat for Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. The trip is not a sightseeing adventure but a journey the young men and women hope will bring back gold to Belize. The Junior Track and Field team will be competing in the upcoming Central American Athletic Championship Games in Guatemala. Nelson Hyde, President of the Belize Amateur Athletic Association says since last year the team has been practicing for the Games and Belize should only expect the best from them.

Nelson Hyde, President, Belize Athletic Association

“The whole spectrum of the Track and Field events will be taking part. Hundred metres, two hundred metres up to fifteen hundred metres, the long high and triple jump, the shot put disc and javelin and the intent to enter the hectathlon and decathlon. It is not the first time that they will be competing with other countries, what are their chances this time around? This time around we expect to try and break our past record of thirty eight medals, we are looking at least thirty nine and the other countries will be from Central America from Belize right down to Panama. Have they been practicing? Yes, some of them have been in training from last year but serious practices started around February this year and we did our selection in April and we finalize cause we kept eliminating people who didn’t come to practice and a few people who can’t make the trip because of graduation, there is a conflict ins scheduling and so we finalize our team last week to a final thirty-six.

Intially there were some doubt as to whether the team would receive the money needed to make the trip possible but in the end the Ministry of Sports came through with the twenty six thousand one hundred and fifty eight dollars.