Athletic Association says they never planned any ten-K race
On this week’s Sports Monday James Adderley highlighted the plight of almost a dozen runners who showed up at the starting line for what they thought was a scheduled ten-K race in Belize City. When the officials failed to show and the race obviously cancelled the irate athletes vented their anger to the media. Today Adderley spoke to Athletic Association President Nelson Hyde who tells us that at no time was any ten-K race on his organization’s calendar.
Nelson Hyde, President, Belize Amateur Athletic Association
“As far as we know we have scheduled one event for the road for the month of September, 1999 and that is a biathlon: run five-K, ride thirty-K, run five-K. That was originally scheduled for the eighteenth of September and the Celebrations Committee asked us to bring it forward to the twelfth. We agreed and that date is clear for Sunday; nothing before that and nothing after.”
Q: “It’s still interesting, why would so many riders turn up for an event that has never been advertised?”
Nelson Hyde
“Well that is very strange for us too and as far as we know and we are in regular contact with some of them, in fact I spoke with some of them last week. Whenever they need something they call us. They called us last week for something else and never once mentioned anything about any race coming up, cause he knew, and I know and the media knows that according to our calendar that we have an event coming up – September twelfth.”
Q: “Could it be that the runners took it for granted that it’s an annual event and they showed up because it should have been staged?”
Nelson Hyde
“Well that is, I would not want to say farfetched but for want of a better word, I would say farfetched.”
If indeed there was no race scheduled, who told the runners to show up? The answer lies in the official program for September Celebrations which clearly shows that a ten-K race was set for September fifth. When we contacted Celebrations Chief Glenn Tillett he explained that a private concern had originally agreed to sponsor the race but backed out. The item, however, was never deleted from the program. Tillett says the error was entirely his and nobody at the Sports Council or Athletic Association should be blamed.
