Historic Victory: ‘Slim and Trim like Guava Limb’ gets to keep Kinich Ahau Trophy !

With Slim and Trim like Guava Limb now boasting a three-peat victory on the river, the team is now the owner of the prestigious Kinich Ahau trophy.  Tradition had it that each year the winning team would hold on to the trophy for one year with bragging rights.  Since the inception of the race, only one other team had the privilege of taking home the trophy to permanently place on display.  Interestingly, throughout the race, Slim and Trim like Guava Limb found themselves trailing Memory Lane Global Mission (Amado Cruz, Cristian Lopez, and Carlos Linares) by a cumulative 2.315 seconds. The latter had consistently edged them out in the sprints during the first three stages. However, in a thrilling comeback on the final day, Slim and Trim like Guava Limb executed a well-timed breakaway.  It was a strategic move that ultimately secured them the overall title by a margin of 38 seconds. The team appeared on The Morning Show today with Emil Bradley explaining how the breakaway began.

Emil Bradley, Team Manager, Slim and Trim Like Guava Limb: “From the beginning we know our competition was going to be tight. After we’ve paddled that race from Boom to Belize City when they got a good lead, they opened a gap on us we realized where our weaknesses and needed to capitalize. One of them were strength. I mean these guys are stronger than us especially in the dead water for that race for Boom. When they won us Javier mainly was a little discouraged but like I mentioned to them and I keep motivating them I said listen that is only one race, it’s a short race. I mean La Ruta Maya we’ll have to weaken them up in the three days for the final day like we did and we observed everyday. I mean they’re very good. I mean we all got hope and courage after we see the lead that they’re barely beating us so we realized on the fourth day the will be in some serious trouble. And like they all mentioned every day we have a briefing, a debriefing, we notice our mistakes and we likewise the mistakes from the other team and see where we could capitalize on that and we realized that we knew it was very crucial for us for the first time if they had gotten in that canal ahead of us it would have been a different race. I think they wouldn’t have beat us but it would have been a close race because the guys they’re younger, they recover more and they have more strength than the guys. After the races I look at them and I see yeah we’re putting a heart on them, wear and tear. We’re putting a hurt on them and realized that and I told the guys listen this is our race. If we beat them by one canoe we win this race so it’s not like we’re losing way behind them. I mean it’s just not far away. I call it a tie. So I knew at the end we could have done it. I knew the strength, we work out, we train, they know exactly how they stand, they know the remaining strength that they have and they managed just at the entrance if you look at the video for them just to gain that little edge over the Global and that was it. That was the race.”

For the past three consecutive wins, the Slim and Trim like Guava Limb has been made up of the same three paddlers, Guardado, Cruz and Cabb.  The first team to ever take home the Kinich Ahau Trophy permanently was the Belize Bank Bull Dogs, some eleven years ago.