Wonder Woman Competition Returns

The Belize Coast Guard officially kicked off its Wonder Woman Competition today at its base in Belize City. The three-day event will see women from across the Belize Coast Guard and the Belize Defense Force compete in fitness challenges, swimming competitions, long distance runs, marches and shooting drills. The Wonder Woman Competition was first held in 2016. The event was placed on hold at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But, this year the competition is back. We stopped by the Belize Coast Guard’s headquarters this morning to find out more about this year’s event.

Shawdi Reyes

Lieutenant Shawdi Reyes, Wonder Woman Coordinator, Belize Coast Guard

“This was in an effort to include women within the security forces to build team moral, leadership, team building capacity and all of that. The competition starts with very easy events. Today we have the sit-ups, push-ups which is the Coast Guards CGPFT. And, it starts with two miles run, two minutes push up, two minutes sit ups, best effort for pull ups. For the second day in the afternoon we have the Coast Guard medley, the women have to back a log or back a certain items around the lap and complete the lap and go up the line, which is the last event for that actual event.”

Loany Ruiz

Ensign Loany Ruiz, Belize Coast Guard

“We basically had a month and a half of training. Throughout that training we have been running a lot. We have been running with weights. We have transitioned from doing cardio to doing the events we will be doing over these three days. Every time we train we would clock ourselves and try to do a better time than we would a day or week before. So we always try to beat our own scores and times.”

Shamika Franklin

Private Shamika Franklin, Belize Defense Force

“Yo sweat and yo go, nice sweat, number one for BDF.”

Paul Lopez

“What did you do to prepare?”

Private Shamika Franklin

“Every day dah workout, Monday to Friday, sun hot, rain, shine, we wah deh out. The work you put in yo wah get out, dah nuh bout compete with each other. The work you put in dah weh yo wah get out deh. That is how we perform just now.”

Ensign Loany Ruiz

“It is good because most of the times the guys would say oh they can’t do this because they are females. But, doing this and holding these events we prove to them that we can do it. After finishing my pushups one of the guys was like wow I didn’t know you have more pushups than me, because I sixty-seven and he is like my last amount was sixty. It is basically to show them that hey we can do it and sometimes do it better.”