And turning now to sports news… The Central American Senior Championships were held last weekend in San Jose, Costa Rica. Belizean athletes brought home 1 gold, 1 silver and 4 bronze medals in various events.
But that first-place prize was captured by Samantha Dirks in the 200 meters race. Dirks was born in California and has been training in Florida for quite some time. But her roots are Belizean and we spoke to her yesterday via Zoom to get her take on the race and her reason behind repping the 501.
Samantha Dirks - First Place, 200M Race
"This competition was interesting because it was a lot of things going on, bad weather, so we had to postpone our heat for the 200 and then come back and run so it was a good experience, it keeps me on my toes to always be ready so this particular race, going into it, I prepared, warmed up, and then they told us oh you have to wait an hour because they went straight to finals, usually we'll have a semi-finals then finals but this one went straight to finals so it was a nice experience, given the fact that it was raining, I just wanted to do my best and get first place for Belize so that's what I managed to do and it was a good race, it was a great experience. I've been representing since 2016, I was supposed to represent in Rio, but I had a back injury, and I was barely able to walk. I first started with Belize out of college, I have my papers and everything, my family, we all have dual citizenship, so I was able to compete in 2016 when I was just out of college so I went to represent Belize in Worlds in 2017 in London, that was a more international competition, so I've been training ever since and with COVID the Olympics got postponed, it threw everybody off and I've just been grinding and training for the last few years and I'm ready to see my results so I could put Belize on the map and really represent Belize in a great light. My family grew up very strong and into sports, I remember watching track and field with my grandparents all the time, when the Olympics would come around my grandma, who passed away, Sylvia Bood, but I remember watching track and field with her and her being so excited and her wanting me to be like Marion Jones and that motivated me a lot because you know she passed away so it means a lot that I'm able to carry this on and represent my family and my family's roots."
Dirks said the Belizean athletes have the talent but lack the resources in many instances. She hopes to one day remedy this by using her own resources to assist the athletes here in the country however she can.
