Athletes in New Delhi doing their best in 2010 Commonwealth Games
Thousands of miles away in New Delhi, India, a contingent of Belizeans are competing against top athletes in the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Controversy shrouded the games when they started because the facilities were either not up to par or had not been completed. But the games are now well underway and News Five got an update on the performance of our local cyclists and runners. The results are somewhat bittersweet. According to the National Olympic Committee, we’re bringing home the medals but the performance of the athletes is extremely encouraging. In fact, Belize has topped all other Caribbean countries in the individual time trials. Public Relations Officer for the National Olympic Committee gave us more details.
Owen Sonny Meighan, Public Relations Officer, National Olympic Committee
“Two riders that finished the race Greg Lovell and Edgar Arana did very well. Greg finished twenty-sixth and Mr. Arana finished forty-sixth. We placed twelfth out of thirty-three countries that took part in that road race.”
Delahnie Bain
“And this is the first time that we have riders actually completing the race?”
owen sonny meighan
Owen Sonny Meighan
“Completing the course yes, which is a plus for us. It shows that our riders are—we’re not winning medals yet but we’re getting better and better every time.”
Delahnie Bain
“We also had some riders participating in the time trials. Could you tell us about that?”
Owen Sonny Meighan
“Yes, our best female raider, our number one female rider, Shalini Zabaneh, took part in the time trials and she did well but that’s a very competitive individual race; even more so than the road races. Shalini finished eighteenth in the time trials and she did very good time. Her time was the best she ever done and the competition was stiff, very stiff.”
Delahnie Bain
“And we had three male riders as well.”
Owen Sonny Meighan
“Yes, we had Byron Pope, we had Mr. [Edgar] Arana and Mr. [Jairo] Campos. They all took part in the time trials. Overall they did well.”
Pope, Arana and Campos placed twenty-fifth, thirty-eighth and forty-fifth respectively. In the female time trials, Belize placed tenth of fourteen countries and for the males we were fifteenth out of twenty-nine.
Until we make sports a job for our athletes, we won’t surface in top at these games. For example, most if not all of our athletes do sports as a hobby. In other countries, sports is their job, it pays the bills.
congrats to our athletes that are trying tho.
Very promising and well done.
100% correct Proud, Belize needs to change their attitude towards our athletes. Look at the young man that was knock down and killed last month. I don’t mean to bring it up and upset his family. I just want to highlight that the negative comments from people complaining about the cyclist on our roads and in their way when they are driving.
Quite frankly if I was the Mayor I would have designated time when no vehicles (except buses driving at a 30mph) on the Western highway say between 5am – 7am Sun to Sun to allow our guys to train. These little things could mean big things for the whole country. I don’t think the government let alone the average person in Belize understand that if we have stars they can possibly pick up sponsorship from NIKE, ADIDAS etc which in turn is good for our society as the money trickle down into the community etc. Yes, these guys should be paid to concentrate on the sports.