Local body fitness athletes Rocky Kewley and T'Chelle Harris were victorious in their respective categories at Saturday's St Lucia Invitational Body-Building and Fitness Classic held at the Dame Pearlette Louisy Auditorium.Kewley beat eight contenders for the Men's Physique Open Class, while Harris achieved a similar feat in the Body Fitness Open category.
The victories marked their competition debuts for 2016.
But as it turned out victory for Kewley had a special twist, as he revealed during an T&T Guardian interview from St Lucia: "I was confident coming into this competition because I had a score to settle with a top athlete from St Maarten, who defeated me in Anguilla. I came second in Anguilla.
I was rather confident. I knew for sure that my co-athlete T'Chelle Harris in the Body Fitness competition would have won because she won at CAC (Central American and Caribbean) and she came with a similar package. So I knew she was unbeatable. I placed second at CAC in the Bahamas. I lost by one point. Going into this competition (in St Lucia) I was hopeful that I would win because I got a lot of support from T&T."
Ahead of the St Lucia Invitational Kewley hosted a fund-raiser event so that he could attend the competition. He revealed that public interest in his pursuits saw further donations from Elizabeth Montano of Machel Montano HD, Damian Rose of Europa Trinidad and an unkown group. Their additional investments helped him secured his fifth international title in the sport.
While applying the requisite gym work in preparation for the competition Kewley sent images frequently to Suzanna Hadad, president of T&T Body Building and Fitness Federation to illustrate his progress.To his delight, Hadad would always reply expressing satisfaction with his progress.
Harris said: "The competition was a good one. It was a great experience for me coming out here to St Lucia. It was the first time they had this show. I feel good about competing. It gave me a good platform to motivate other younger athletes coming into the sport. When they see the package that I present, they would be able to train harder.
"It gave them a goal to aspire too, based on what they saw at the show and to aspire to achieve a healthier lifestyle. My next competition would be the Inter-Island Caribbean Classic in St Maarten in July where I will present a bigger, better package: tighter, more conditioning, the whole works.
"Everything will be better."