When the Belize Crosscountry first began, on Holy Saturday of 1928, it should be noted that it began as an expedition, and not as a race. That is one of the reasons why you will see some names we would associate with some colonial privilege amongst those who rode to Cayo and back in that first bicycle experiment. As the years went by, however, the journey became a real race, and that race began to be dominated by working class Belizeans.
Historically, most Belizeans who could, tried to get out of the city for the long Easter weekend. They would leave on Holy Thursday and return on Easter Monday. Back in the days before television exposed the world to Belizeans, Good Friday was a day most of our people spent locked up in their homes or going to church. Everything came to a complete standstill. Religion had become superstition to a significant extent, and many Belizeans were afraid of Good Friday itself. We are pointing this out to emphasize the excited awakening which the Holy Saturday pre-dawn represented to those of our people who were not able to travel to the cooling cayes, coastal villages and the countryside for the Easter weekend.
The start of the Crosscountry race used to be a huge event in itself. Because the traditional 5 a.m. start took place in the dark, Belizean ladies would come out to “send off the boys” and get back home before the sun exposed the fact that they hadn’t gone to the usual lengths to “titivate.” The young men were excited and the young ladies were excited on Holy Saturday morning. Nowadays, the race starts in broad daylight, at 6 a.m. A pity.
The 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s were the glory years for the Holy Saturday race. Country was completely authentic and indigenous. It was created by Belizeans, and it struck a national chord of surging harmony and historic melody. The race itself was massively symbolic, in that the ride essentially followed the same route the “founding fathers” had travelled in Belize, along the Belize Old River from the Haulover Creek to the Mopan/Macal in search of the mahogany, cedar, pine and other hardwoods which, along with chicle, were the economic lifeblood of the colony which was becoming a country.
Country ran into problems in the later part of the 1980s, when the team concept entered the race, and the egotistic oligarchs began importing American and other foreign riders to ensure that their team won the race. In reality, the “team” bears the business name of its individual oligarch. The oligarch was glorified. It was the Belizean riders who were being sacrificed for the glory of a business “team.” Belizean riders were being sacrificed to foreign riders who were of a higher caliber and who had started to use all the supplements which were not only illegal, but unknown to Belizeans.
When we pointed out those things back then in the late 1980s, the apologists in the cycling bureaucracy argued that the higher level competition would raise Belizean cyclists to a higher level. They defended the team concept on the grounds that this was how Belizeans would have to ride in foreign competitions, and they said that cycling had become such an expensive sport that the “team concept” had to take over.
None of those arguments from the cycling experts holds any water for the Belizean masses. On Holy Saturday, we would like to crown a Belizean champion. That’s all there is to it. This was how it was in the beginning, this was how it was in the glory years, but this is not how it is today. What we are saying at the newspaper is this, if the Belize Crosscountry is now for the region and for the world, instead of being cosa nostra, let one of these giant transnationals, like Exxon, Toyota or Heineken, underwrite the race’s financing and market it regionally and internationally. As it is today, we Belizeans are still responsible for the race, but all we have been doing is prepare a feast for foreigners to enjoy. It is the norm today for the end of the Holy Saturday race to leave a bad taste in Belizeans’ mouths, a taste which lasts into Easter Sunday.
If the corporations do not want to take over the race, then Belizeans should limit entries to Quintana Roo, Peten and maybe Cayman and Jamaica. When the race has included foreigners from further away, and this has been the case for the last 23 years, they have destroyed our Belizean cyclists. Why do we continue to commit this annual and national self-flagellation?