Williams Lake and area athletes finished sixth out of 13 regions in the medal standings recently at the BC Seniors Games.
The North Central Zone (Zone 9), which Williams Lake is a part of, brought home 34 gold medals, 36 silver medals and 26 bronze medals for a 96-medal total.
The winning team, Zone 4’s Lower Mainland, captured 433 medals (220 gold, 121 silver and 92 bronze).
Williams Lake athletes competed in a variety of sports over the course of the Games, which ran from Aug. 21-25 in Burnaby, including five-pin bowling, floor curling, golf, track and field and hockey with several medalling in the process.
In golf Doug Martineau and his wife, Floris Martineau, both competed and both, coincidentally, won silver medals. Doug took silver in the men’s 80-plus category, while Floris medalled in the women’s 80-plus division.
In floor curling the team of Lill Langstrom (lead), Greta Bowser (second), Marjorie Struthers (third) and Ellen Wiege (skip) won bronze in the women’s 55-plus ‘A’ division, beating out Kamloops to win the medal.
Wiege said she was happy with the way her team competed, especially since they were up against teams who play together year round.
“It was very competitive,” Wiege said. “We’re used to just picking up teams and playing in our basement [at the Williams Lake Senior’s Centre], but when you go to these bigger cities they play floor curling like ice curling — they have their teams and they play together all year.
“We’re just a pickup team that goes down so I feel pretty good when we can finish how we do.”
In track and field Leo Rankin, Jim Johnston and Marlene Johnston competed — each winning multiple medals.
Rankin took gold medals in the men’s 60-64 1,500 metres, the 10-kilometre road race and the 5,000 metres. He also won a silver medal in the men’s 800 metre.
Jim won gold medals in all three of the men’s 65-69 long jump, the men’s 60-69 shot put, and the men’s pentathlon, and also won silver medals in pole vault and the men’s 100-metre. Jim completed his medal trio with a bronze in the men’s 65-69 10-kilometre road race.
In women’s track and field Marlene took home the gold in the 10-kilometre road race.
In hockey four Williams Lake residents competed. David Corless helped the men’s 65-plus team to a fourth-place finish.
Bruce Mack, Gib Scott and Larry Wendel also combined on a Prince George team to take fourth in the men’s 60-plus division.
Mack said most games were tightly-contested in his division.
“This was the eighth Games I’ve been to in the last nine years and they are really well done,” Mack said. “Both divisions we played in were very balanced with most games having no more than a one- to two-goal spread. Both 60-plus and 65-plus teams played in, but lost, the bronze medal game 1-0 and 2-0, respectively.”
In five-pin bowling the teams of Larry Bowser, Marlene Davis, Shirley Hopkins, Bonnie O’Neill and Duncan Roberts, and Lynn Rodier, Wayne Rodier, Heward Smedley, Herb Weatherby and Norma Weatherby competed but missed out on the medal rounds.
