Well-known female cyclist Kaya Cattouse is the latest athlete to come out against the Cycling Federation of Belize, amid the controversy surrounding the stalling of its elections.  She is not necessarily siding with Tariq Cano who is one of several candidates vying for presidency of the embattled organization, instead Cattouse has chosen to come forward as a female rider who is being stifled by the less than desirable management of the federation.  News Five understands that CFB President Dion Leslie has taken a six- week leave of absence to focus on his mayoral candidacy for the upcoming municipal elections and has deferred the media to Vice President Orson Butler.  But today, Cattouse laid bare what she believes are serious issues that continue to go unaddressed by the failing organization, including a lack of races being held for female and junior athletes.

Kaya Cattouse, Female Cyclist

“It really hurts to know that you work so hard towards achieving different goals in cycling and most of the time your concerns are not heard by the federation and different things that should be done by the federation are not taking place.  As it relates to the frequency of which elections are being called, it should be every four years which was due in November of last year.  We are already a couple months away from that and an election hasn’t been called as yet, for whatever reasons.  From what I understand, the Cycling Federation is blaming the National Sports Council because they have submitted a proposed constitution that has not been vetted and XYZ.  But what the Cycling Federation fails to say is that they probably have not even, in the four years that they have been in office, have they registered with the sports council for all those four years?  So why now are they making it an issue that they have to register, they have to do this before election, I mean, yes we understand that these things need to be done but at the same time they need to communicate this to the cyclists.  Communication is the key to this entire situation, nothing is being communicated.  We have no idea who is running, when the election is, where it will be, what they are planning to do if they get into office.  We know nothing of the sort.  All we know is that elections were supposed to be in November.  It has not happened as yet.”

Channel 5