For more than 40 years, the name Spartan Health Club has been associated with beauty, health, and fitness in Jamaica.

The popular Corporate Area gym was founded in 1976 by body-building and fitness enthusiast Mickey Haughton-James, and his protégé Cindy Breakspeare, who later that year copped the Miss World title in London. Spartan would go on to become the local franchise holder for the Miss Jamaica World pageant to great success.

However, in September, the Spartan Health Club story came to an end when the facility closed its doors.

Haughton-James said it was due to the “extremely negative effect” that COVID-19 was having on the financial operations of the club. In a notice to his membership and the public at large, he noted that large gyms, like Spartan, requires significant membership to be viable.

“A crowded gym is a hotspot for the coronavirus which is predicted to be with us for many more months. We predict that it will be years before large gyms are viable,” the gym said.

“This opinion seems to be shared by our bankers of more than 45 years which recently informed us that they viewed gyms as a high-risk investment at this time and would be reluctant to extend loans or provide overdrafts,” he continued.

The Spartan legacy in the world of international pageants includes two Miss World title holders. In addition to Breakspeare, Lisa Hanna went on to with that competition in South Africa in 1993.

A number of the other representatives went on to place highly. Debbie Campbell was third in 1979; Sandra Cunningham also placed third in 1981; Cathy Levy was fourth in 1983, and Allison Barnett was fifth in 1985. Several Spartan beauties also took home the Queen of Beauty title for the Caribbean region at Miss World. Included in that list are Erica Aquart in 1990, Sandra Foster in 1991, Michell Moodie in 1997; Christine Straw in 1998, Jade Fulford in 2003, and Sara Lawrence in 2006.