Cycling Association reverses disqualification
Cycling in Belize is serious business and as the clock ticks down to Holy Saturday, the prospects for controversy will only get stronger. On last night’s sports report, James Adderley noted the disqualification of a team in Sunday’s Belmopan Classic. Tonight James has a sequel.
James Adderley, Reporting
Yesterday’s news of the punitive measures issued out by the Melvin Torres led Belize Cycling Association because of alleged deliberate misinformation concerning the Mexican cyclist Juan Manuel Garcia registered by the Acros/Guinness/Smiling Meats Team for Sunday’s running of the Belmopan Cycle Classic hit the community like a ton of bricks. The reaction was immediate, vigorous and, in this case, quite unexpected.
Melvin Torres, President, Belize Cycling Association
“No one is totally blameless in this whole issue. The management of the Acros/Guinness/Smiling Meats Team did not present all the necessary documentation to us as it entails that they should have presented. So, the association failed in that regard also in not insuring that we receive the necessary documentation. What happened, just after the event, there were some complaints that the rider is a professional rider. In our investigation we found out that the rider that the Guinness/Smiling Meats Team had registered in Ismael Ponce came up on the computer has Jose Manuel Garcia Ponce. And we wanted to verify that that was the person we were talking about because the names were totally different. When we went to his former team website we recognized that that was the name that he was using in Mexico. And also in the United States when he registered there he did not have all those names either so we put one and one together. Then there was a profile of his picture, the profile of his picture matched the gentleman. Now, our understanding after a subsequent meeting yesterday with some team members and the management we recognized that this person was the brother of this gentleman who came to Belize – Ismael Ponce. So we are still uncertain as to the calibre of this rider that came here in Belize and we ask that the team insure that they give us the necessary documentation but we had to renege on the decision that we made based on those assumptions”
“There are some innocent people in this whole situation that the association probably did some wrong to and we apologize to Jose Manuel “Chepe” Garcia. That is the only person I think that we did some wrong to because the Guinness/Smiling Meats Team also had its fault in this whole issue.”
James Adderley
“Maybe you ought to tell us what it is before you go?”
Melvin Torres
“The whole issue is that Smiling Meats have been doing races for some time now, they understand the logistics, they understand the procedure and yet they continue to ignore these procedures. So what the association did was just try to correct a wrong. In so doing, that probably it was to over zealous at that time.”
In the meantime folks, Matthew Smiling of the Acros/Guinness/Smiling Meats team was also willing to accept some blame for this unfortunate predicament.
Matthew Smiling, Manager, Acros/Guinness/Smiling Meats Team
“We are guilty of not presenting Ismael Ponce license, that’s the only thing we are guilty of. Unfortunately, the association allowed him to ride without viewing the license for Ismael and, unfortunately for the association again, there is no charge or no penalty for that offence.”
“They claim that we brought a guy by the name of Jose “Chepe” Garcia to Belize to ride in the race on Sunday when in fact Jose “Chepe” Garcia was riding in another race in another country, mainly the Valley Classic in California and we presented all this to Mr. Torres. How could you accuse us of bringing this person when in fact this person was in another race in another country? Four of our sponsors are really mad about this and I could understand the pain they are going through because like I explained to Mr. Torres he’s not attacking only my brother and myself but he’s also attacking our sponsors – the honesty of our sponsors, one, the integrity of them, two, and also the integrity of the team itself – because we did not misinform the association in any way, shape or form.”
James Adderley
“So, how do we get past this?”
Matthew Smiling
“Well like I said we need a written – we are asking, we have been asking for it from yesterday – a written apology from the association.”
People, recently deceased James Brown once said “it takes a man or a woman to say I’m sorry”. I’m certain we spoke to two big men today. This is James Adderley reporting for News five.
