Athletes did well despite lack of training facilities

dion sutherland

While victory is sweet for the team, preparing them also came with some level of commitment.  But once everyone knew how important the games were, team delegate, Dale Sutherland says training was no problem.

Dion Sutherland, delegate, Athletics team

“It wasn’t difficult because this is something the athletes knew long in advance and they prepared themselves, they made sure that they were there for practice, they were on time so it wasn’t difficult in preparation. The only problem is, as you know, we don’t have a track, our facilities are not proper so that would be the only challenge, but they have known over the years how to overcome challenges like those.”

Marion Ali

“We brought back how many medals? And how good was that in comparison to the others?”

Dion Sutherland

“We got four gold and two silver and that’s a team of six athletes in comparison to Panama or Costa Rica, which had a contingent of forty-eight, fifty.  So our athletes went out there with determination.  Actually we set two records for the Central American Games, in the male four hundred meter hurdles and the female long jump. If our athletes would have proper training facilities – you know when we tell others that we don’t have a track in Belize they want to know how our athletes perform so well not having a track.”

Not all teams in the Belize contingent have returned and we will have updates on their performances later this week.