And after weeks of silence regarding the criticism about where this year's race will end, a member of the La Ruta Maya committee and representative from the Harrison Family has finally spoken out.
Roberto Harrison, Co-Chair of the committee said that they factored in several things before making the final decision:
Roberto Harrison, Co-Chair La Ruta Maya
"Well clearly, there's several factors that played into changing from the traditional Belize City because we have done several locations in the city, knowing that the couple of the bridges will be demolished next year, we anticipated that would of caused some searching on where we would want to end the race so we looked at several options and we decided that perhaps the first option would have been at Grand Resort and it's a test, I mean if it works out well then we want to maintain that at least in the next 3 years, because those bridges will not be finished, or at least the Belcan 3 maybe 4 years to be completed."
And you'll recall that at the Belize Canoe Association meeting held last week Saturday, his nephew, Sadani Bong Harrison said that in 2027 Love FM would be removed from the race. Well today, his uncle is saying that is not entirely true, adding that perhaps his nephew should have consulted with him before making premature statements:
Roberto Harrison, Co-Chair La Ruta Maya
"I think it's unfortunate that he made that statement without perhaps looking at me as being the oldest person in this committee, to say that we have to honor an agreement that we have with Love Fm/RSV. So to make a premature statement like that was perhaps not the best at the time."
Reporter
"And so you can confirm that that is not true?"
Roberto Harrison, Co-Chair La Ruta Maya
"I can't say it's not true because that was his position at least my position is you know there's dialogue to be had if there's any change of leadership quote unquote for this race."
We have received information from other teams that they were consulted about new finishing point of the race back in October and November of last year but there was no follow up before the final decision was made.
