Belize canoeists do well in U.S.

Our female softball champions placed a disappointing fourth last week in San Salvador and reports from Santo Domingo indicate that our athletes in the Pan American Games are finishing well to the back of the pack. But that does not mean all the news on the international sporting front is bad. News 5 has received word from the United States that Belizean canoeist Alex Lisbey has taken top spot in the Texas State Championships. The four time winner of La Ruta Maya, who also left the competition behind in this year’s extreme race, is on his first trip to the States and is leaving some of the best American paddlers in his wake. In the video on your screen he is teamed with U.S. partner Wade Binion in the prestigious Au Sable Marathon, in which they finished sixteenth. In that same competition fellow Ruta Maya champ, Armin Lopez, along with his U.S. counterpart, Steve Landick, did even better, finishing an impressive ninth in a field of seventy strong teams. The race, which runs overnight, involves fifteen hours of non-stop paddling. The participation of Lisbey, Lopez and Amado Cruz was made possible by the Belize Canoe Association, TACA and Continental Airlines.