Over the years, they've opened the doors for other members of the security forces to compete as well. And after a two year pandemic pause, the Coast Guard and BDF women are going head to head over the next three days. Courtney Menzies was there today for the start of the competition and has this story.

The Coast Guard's Wonder Woman Competition comprises three grueling days of physical activities that strengthen both the bodies and minds of the women in Belize's security forces. And on Wednesday, one of four teams competing this year will be crowned champions.

This morning's competition kicked off at 9, with the easiest challenges the women will face over the next few days.

Lt. Shawdi Reyes, Coordinator, Wonder Woman Competition
"The first event is the CGPFT, it's the female version, you do pull ups, push ups, sit ups, and the two mile run. Basically it is endurance, how much push ups you can do in two minutes, how much pull ups you can do best effort, how much sit ups you can do in two minutes, and then the two mile run is the best effort, how fast you can do it."

"This morning's competition already began, for this afternoon, we have the one mile ocean swim which is going to start at 1400 hours and then after the one mile ocean swim, there is the two mile run, so finishing the one mile ocean swim, the women get into their PT gears and they do the two mile run."

"Everybody's very energetic, usually for the first event everybody's really excited and they're here to the competition, they're here to compete, they're here to win, everyone is going for first place so the women are very excited."

"The importance of this competition, well, 1, it builds leadership, team building, and then physical fitness because that is what comprises our security forces, physical fitness but most of all leadership and team building. I think that is very important especially when we participates as leaders and have teams like that, it is very important within an organization."

And for the past month and a half, all 32 women competing have been training non-stop, so much so that some of them can even out perform the men of the security forces.

Ensign Loany Ruiz, Coast Guard Alpha Team
"Every time we train we would clock ourselves and try to do a better time than we did the day before, the week before, so we always try to beat our own scores and our own times."

"I feel good, like I said, our aim today and everybody's aim today was to beat the last amount that I had, so I basically beat my amount with pushups and beat my amount with sit ups and the pull-ups so I definitely feel accomplished and that's what everybody aiming for, beat the last amount, or beat the person that you think you can beat."

"Personally for myself, my greatest challenge is the running because I'm a long distance runner, I run 13, 26 miles, this small run is basically 2 miles, it takes my body 6 miles to get warmed up so these two miles hurt the most but it's just me, my teammates, they basically have to run, everybody in the team has a weakness and the stronger person would compensate for that person's weakness and that's how it goes."

"Most of the time the guys would say they can't do this, they're females, but doing this and holding these events, we basically prove to them that hey, we can do it. After I finished with my pushups one of the guys was like, wow I didn't know you could do that, you have more pushups than me. I did 67 and he's like my last amount was 60, so it's basically to show them that hey, we can do it and we can sometimes do it better."

And while the police department did not participate this year, two of the teams are from the BDF - and they believe they have a shot at beating the Coast Guard women on their own turf.

Captain Gina Lovell, Belize Defense Force
"If you could see, I'm tired, the first event took place but I'm confident that our team will do great."

"It's the same that we normally do in the Belize Defense Force, APFT, which is the pushups and sit ups, the only thing that's different is the pull ups so we normally take the pull ups out, but we normally do the pushups, sit ups and the two miles runs, so it's not supposed to be difficult for the BDF. We have a good chance this year, hopefully."

The competition ends on Wednesday.