San Pedro residents participated in the Lionman Triathlon Competition in Belize City which took place on Sunday, September 4. Kent Gabourel, Eric Donis and Kaya Cattouse of Team C-Ray Bad Intensions placed third in the overall competition.
The Lionman Triathlon was first held in September 2000 and is Belize’s annual flagship triathlon event and is the toughest multi-sport event in the country. The Lionman is conducted at the standard Olympic distances which entail a 1500m (0.93 miles) swim; a 40km (24.8 miles) bike ride and a 10km (6.2 miles) run for both individual (male and female) and corporate team events.
Competitors battled it out against each other and against the scorching heat giving it their all and doing their best to finish the race. Taking first place were Kevin Seroki, Shalini Zabaneh and Brandon Cattouse of Team Sagutin with a time of 2hrs 19mins 23secs, second place went to Denise Dias, Wilbert Jones and Louis Haulze of Team Spectrum Design with a time of 2hrs 25mins 16sec and third place went to Kaya Cattouse, Kent Gabourel and Eric Donis of Team C-Ray Bad Intensions with a time of 2hrs 29mins and 32secs.
Congratulations to all the winners, especially to San Pedro’s Team C-Ray Bad Intensions for a job well done!
How the Lionman Triathlon Began:
In 1999, Efrain “Beeps” Phillips had an idea. Well, sort of. He was always a sports enthusiast at heart and used to play basketball competitively. But his idea did not involve basketball. It involved cycling, a sport in which his older brother Mike excelled during the 1980’s.
As a Customs Officer working at the Port Authority Warehouse, Phillips first became interested in wanting Customs personnel to compete with Port employees in mountain bike races for bragging rights. A few races were in fact staged. However, the participation was lower than expected. Phillips decided to move away from a departmental event to a national appeal in sport.
After one day listening to some Port Authority personnel accused him of only being interested in bike races, he became motivated to look at other sport alternatives. One day while watching television, he saw a triathlon being broadcast live in the United States. That was when the idea hit him—a triathlon.
Phillips discussed his brainchild with his work colleagues. It was not a hard sell because of its novelty, and by September 2000, the first-ever Lionman Triathlon, was staged in Belize City, Belize.
