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Team Belize Back to Back Champions
Armin Lopez, Jery Rahburn, Daniel Cruz, Amado Cruz and Efrain Cruz once again proved that we have great paddlers in Belize. They teamed up with John Bugge of Texas to win the Texas Water Safari beating a team known as the Mynars who had not lost in many years. Last year when Team Belize won the Mynars did not paddle since not all their members where around for the race. For this years race they not only had their best paddlers back in the team but reinforced the team by getting one of the best paddlers from Canada to paddle with them. Seeing the team the Mynars had this year very few people though that any team could beat them. Another reason why other paddlers thought we would not be able to win is due to our team not using Kayak paddles. Kayak paddles are faster but they also burn much more energy. Even though barely any body thought we could win all the Belizean members of our team felt very confident. Most people felt that our guys are fast but would not be strong enough to keep up the speed for the entire race. Not only did our team keep the speed but had enough energy left to put even more pressure on the Mynars the second day.
The race started out very exciting with a total of 101 canoes and kayaks. In fact most fans said this was the closest and most exciting race they ever witnessed. Team Belize had a great start but the Mynars soon caught up and past us. For the first 10 hours the teams kept switching leads. At about 12 hours into the race Team Belize slowly started to leave the Mynars behind gaining a few minutes at every check point. The Mynars had to start using their kayak paddles most of the time in order not to lose too much time. This got them tiered and towards the evening of the second day the gap grew much faster to where Team Belize won the race in exactly 48 hours beating the Mynars by 45 minutes.
During the race we spent a lot of time on the river banks with the support crew of the Mynars team. During the time the teams kept close together every body got excited when they pass but when the gap opened up a bit the attitude of some of the Mynars support crew was not so nice. It was obvious that they where not used to loosing. This was very different from what we are used to. Here in Belize during the Ruta Maya the teams compete on the river, but we all remain friends and have fun together, win or lose. It was great to once again win such an important race in the US. The team will do a few more races on which I will report as they happen. Before I close we need to thank the sponsors because without them we could not have won.
The sponsors are
Grupo Taca
Marco Industries
A & B Loewen Construction
Hopkins Bay Resort
Belizean Dreams
Koop Sheet Metal
Belize Tourism Board and
The Belize Canoe Association.
Report done By Elvin Penner
President of the Belize Canoe Association.
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