Our 2012 Athlete of the Year is Casey Brown. The mountain biking dynamo had a breakthrough year in 2012 after winning the Canadian downhill title, being named the Queen of Crankworx, finishing seventh at the world championships and earning her first World Cup podium to cap off her race season.
The runner-up goes to Megan Evans, who won the overall title amongst juvenile girls at the Canadian Nordic Championships in Quebec City in March. She won gold, silver and bronze medals at the event. It’s the first national title for a Revelstoke Nordic skier that we know of.
Evans wasn’t the only youth to shine in 2012. Chris Andrews and Peter Behncke both threw their ways to medals at the national youth track and field championships in Prince Edward Island in August. Behncke won silver in the U18 hammer throw and Andrews won bronze in the U16 shot put.
On the sports side, 2012 was kicked off with the Freeskiing and Freeride World Tours coming together for a combined event in Revelstoke. The finals were held on the imposing Mac Daddy venue on the back side of Mount Mackenzie. Hundreds of people hiked out to watch Kye Petersen and Angel Collinson come out on top.
On the ice, the Revelstoke Grizzlies won their conference last year, only to be upset in seven games by the Sicamous Eagles. The off-season saw the team almost move to 100 Mile House, only for the Revelstoke Grizzlies Society to step in and block the move, and Lew Hendrickson to assume control of the team. This season the team sits in third place in its division going into the Christmas break.
2012 saw competitive mountain biking take off in Revelstoke, with more races than ever, it seems. The downhill race series was started to complement the cross-country series. Theresa McGeragle and Stu Dickson won the former; Melanie Bernier and Dominic Unterberger the latter. There was also the annual Stoke to Get Spanked Race, won by John Connor and Bernie; the inaugural Martha Creek Meltdown, a nine-kilometre downhill race down Sale Mountain, won by Marty Schaeffer; and the Mount Revelstoke Steamer, that saw Dave Gondar set a new record for the 26-kilometre hill climb.
Other highlights:
– The Aquaducks brought home 18 medals from the provincial swim championships in Nanaimo.
– The Revelstoke Boxing Club was name the club of the year by Boxing BC.
– The RSS track team had its best results in decades at the provincial championships in Burnaby.
– The Revelstoke Ski Club continued to grow and Dominic Unterberger became the first Revelstoke skier in a while to make the BC Ski Team.
