2009 |
Team Belize winning the
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Texas Water Safari 2009 Report
Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009, 2:04 PM Picture: Front to Back: Kyle Minor, Amado Cruz, Daniel Cruz, Armin Lopez, Andrew Stephens and William Russell "Team Belize" performing great internationally in 2009. The team consist of Armin Lopez, Daniel Cruz and Amado Cruz of Belize and Kyle Minor, Andrew Stephens and William Russell of Texas. They participated in The Ocean to Ocean Canoe Race in Panama from the 3rd to the 6th April where they placed second. This was great considering the fact that it was the first time any member of the team had ever been to Panama before. On the 2nd of May the team won the Texas Water Safari Prelim which gave them the number one starting position for the Texas Water Safari. The following day 3rd May they won the Barrier to the Bay race. Having won several races in May Team Belize became the favorites to win the Texas Water Safari. The race started on the 13 of June and our team lead from Start to finish. The water was very low and it became one of the most difficult Texas Water Safaris in history. The team took just over 46 hours to complete the race. This race starts in San Marcus Texas and finishes at Sea Drift a small town on the beach. They paddle both single and double blades in a 40 plus foot canoe. They have to pull the canoe over dams, log jams and other obstructions in the river. What makes the race even more difficult is that they have to take every thing they will use during the whole race in the canoe before they start. This makes the already heavy canoe even heavier. After the race has started they can only be given water and ice. This is one of the reasons the Texas Water Safari is known as the toughest race in the world. Our team won the race in 2005, 2006 and 2007 came in second in 2008 and won it again in 2009. On behalf of the ministry of sports, all the canoe fanatics and paddlers in Belize I wish to congratulate the team on their success in 2009. If came with a lot of support and dedication. I therefore wish to thank the following sponsors. Ministry of Youth, Sports, Information and Broadcasting Belize Tourism Board Grupo Taca Belize Marco Industries of Tulsa Report made by Elvin Penner President of the Belize Canoe Association |
2008 |
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:
Report By Elvin Penner, President of the Belize Canoe Association |
2007 |
Team Belize Back to Back Champions
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