Kaya Cattouse Wins Regional Cycling Race in Merida

Kaya Cattouse

We’ll have much more in Sports with James Adderley, but today, elite female cyclist Kaya Cattouse told us that she competed in a race in Merida over the weekend. The two stage criterium saw over two hundred cyclists from the region compete. Cattouse won both races at La Vuelta Yucatan 2016. She returned to the Jewel today and visited us here at News Five’s studios.

Kaya Cattouse, Cyclist

“I left Belize on Thursday night en route to Merida, Yucatan Mexico for the La Vuelta Yucatan 2016; it’s a race that has been happening for some years now, previously known as the Tour de Mayab. They have categories for elite female masters, under twenty-three, novice, open. It is a very big race and it is known across Mexico and in Belize as well. Stage one was a fifteen kilometer time trial which is equivalent to just about ten miles. The course was very windy; I actually won that stage by one second in a time of twenty-four minutes fifty-six seconds and the second place was just one second behind. The race was very competitive; there were twenty-nine females racing and most of the females…I was the only person there alone. Everybody was there on a team and the smallest team had three persons. After day one, we didn’t get the results until the following morning, which was just before the race where I learnt that I was the leader by one second. So the race was all strategic, I have to say, because being the leader, we like to call that in cycling, you are the piñata; everybody wants to take a hit at you. So I just made sure that I covered every attack that went by.  I didn’t have to be aggressive; I didn’t have to try to get away because I needed no time. Everybody else needed to get time on me because in a tour, it goes by time. So regardless of who won the second day, they would have to cover the time that they were behind on me to get that. Stage two was on Paseo de Montejo; one of the most popular criteriums in all of Mexico, which is in Merida. It was a forty kilometer race which is equivalent to about twenty-one miles.”

Cattouse says that she is currently preparing for the Caribbean Cycling Championships which comes up in October in Guadalupe. She is in need of sponsors and is asking for business to help in her journey to represent Belize in the international race.