The final for the ninth annual ADM Secondary School National Nutrition Quiz Competition was held today at the Princes eight schools competed but only one could win and that was Sacred Heart high from Cayo.
They told Alfrain Supal how they did it in a tiebreaker:
Matthew Morris, Sacred Heart College
"We were very confident that we win but we know that we put in hard work and preparation so it was more than likely that we should win but the chance that we could win - that was good too. But we would win - that's another thing and we should win because we were prepared."
Alfrain Supal
"How did you feel when you realize that you guys were in a tie with San Pedro?"
Elvis Avila, Sacred Heart College
"When I realize we were in a tie I said to myself this is when we really need to put ourselves that we have to win because i mean we came this far and it would be a disappointment for me to loose but then that's why we had to more work into it and try to break the tie and win."
Alfrain Supal
"What was the most exciting and accelerating part of the journey to become winners?"
Matthew Morris, Sacred Heart College
"I would say the tie-breaker. The tie breaker was the most part where we were tested with our knowledge and preparation because at that point that showed that another team was equally as good as us, they were equally prepared like us and they had to be taught like us obviously and so they were different gender - girl and so we had to fight against them."
Omar Hernandez, Sacred Heart College
"I was confident that we were going to win, however when we reach to the tie breaker I was 'oh mein, why did this happen?' but I had confident in myself and in my team mates and I had faith in God and successfully we won."
Alfrain Supal
"What was the most difficult task in training these guys?"
Karen Wade, Head - Science Dept. - Sacred Heart College
"Actually it wasn't difficult because they did most of it on their own. My biggest task was to take the last set of documents that nutrition competition people had sent to me - convert them into questions and have these students study all of those questions and there were hundreds of questions because the information was all new. "
Robin Daly, Nutritionist - Ministry of Health
"They have always been one of the top schools to be in the training part of it so we are expecting very good results from the school and of course for next year we are encouraging more schools to participate and start studying early."
Alfrain Supal
"Where does the winner go from here?"
Robin Daly, Nutritionist - Ministry of Health
"The winner start training again because we actually regionals, so it's a three phase process. We have the districts, we had nationals today and they we go into regionals. In the regionals they are train with a coach, myself, the teacher from the school, with other coaches as well and we prepare them to compete against other Caribbean countries. so that would take place in either September or October, so we have a couple more months to prepare them properly so they can do well again."
San Pedro High was a close second. A team consisting of winners from the first, second and third place schools will be selected to form the national team which will represent Belize in the regional competition via audio conferencing facilities at UWI School of Continuing Studies.
Belize has excelled in the regional competition in 2006 and 2007.
