In its 5th year the 8 day, 592 mile Tour de Belize is moving from strength to strength. The event begins on February tenth and as it moves towards international accreditation, public relations man Kwame Scott told us the international interest in the event is steadily climbing: and while Belizeans have won all the previous races, most recently with Marlon Castillo, this year, it's going be tough.
Kwame Scott, P.R. Officer
"The biggest races in the tours. Not to take anything away from the Cross Country which is our biggest event but it is a one day event. A tour allows a rider to have a bad day today and have a good day tomorrow which means that the better rider will be the rider at the end of nine days. In a one day event such as the Cross Country you find that a cyclist, a rider, has to have an almost perfect day.
In its five years of existing, this is the most we have anticipated participation, this is the interest we have seen from the business community and people can expect a race that will be well organized.
The format is one such that a local team can be infested with foreigners. When you have that case when the winner, the defending champ Marlon Castillo for the Santino's team, they have signed up five riders so far and they have a slot for our international riders from Toshiba team and they will be supporting Marlon more than likely in his endeavor in trying to repeat and defend his title. It is a format that if utilized properly, we can see fireworks. We are expecting fireworks, no less and we are hoping that our Belizean cyclists are there."
Jules Vasquez,
Who will be riding in this race?
Kwame Scott,
"So far we have Belizeans, of course, Americans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Colombians, Swedish, I am not sure what you call the guys from Sweden, Jamaicans, and probably a couple Mexicans."
Jules Vasquez,
How will we ensure that the cyclists who come here are not juiced up?
Kwame Scott,
"Excellent question Jules. I must mention that for the tour to have the credibility that we want it to have, we must have some form of drug testing and at this point we are not going to be disclosing exactly how it is going to be done for obvious reasons. We will be having drug testing in the tour for locals and foreigners."
For more on the race, visit Tour de Belize.com.
