It was a heck of a long drive to get there — but local athletes brought back seven medals from the 2018 BC 55+ Games in Kimberley/Cranbrook, helping Zone 3 (Fraser Valley) to first place overall.
Perennial Games competitor, Jimmy Toy finished third in low gross (actual stroke count) in men’s golf, in the age 80+, 0-17 handicap class. His stroke count was 192 on 36 holes.
Rick Whidden’s 194 strokes earned a low gross gold medal in the men’s age 65-69, 17.1-36.4 handicap division. Whidden competed at the 2017 Games in Vernon but didn’t place in the medals.
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Also golfing at the 2018 games, were Hope’s Kats Sunada and Peter Scherle. Former Hope residents, Rob and Heather Sirianni now live in Revelstoke. Rob won a gold and Heather, two bronzes in their golfing divisions.
Boston Bar 5-pin bowlers are a fixture at the 55+ Games, though they finished off the podium this year. The team included Audrie Platt, Lloyd Forman, Cora Dunlop, Betty Davidson and John Black.
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The big story out of Hope was the great success of rookie competitor Marcus Zerr, in track and field. Zerr rekindled his high school sports experiences from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in the mid-1970s… and was rewarded with two gold and three silver medals in the men’s age 55-59 division.
Zerr’s accomplishments in arm-wrestling have been covered on these pages in past years. There is no arm-wrestling at the 55+ Games – but it was an injury in the sport that detoured Zerr to the track and field events.
“In March, I injured my biceps tendon, where it attaches to the shoulder,” said Zerr.
He took some time off to heal it but never enough, so the injury kept resurfacing.
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“It was going to be a discouraging summer,” he said. “I missed the provincials and had to skip the nationals — then I heard about the senior games.
“My friend, John Koopman really helped me out. He mentored me through the switching over to track and field.” The two friends are regulars at the rec centre’s Refexions gym.
Zerr entered himself in the long jump and triple jump, where he won silver medals. Those didn’t put much strain on his injury — but he also signed up for hammer, javelin, discus, weight throw and shot putt.
“I went to the Zone 3 track and field club in Surrey and they lent me a hammer and a javelin — but the hammer throw was too early in the Games, before we got there,” said Zerr, whose wife Christal and children Titus, Desiree and Connor also attended.
“Throwing wasn’t as bad as arm-wrestling, for pain,” said Zerr. It’s one burst of energy, then it’s over. It’s not like that heavy, heavy pulling pressure of arm-wrestling. I couldn’t throw shot, though. It hurt too much — but the others were straight-armed, using different muscles.
“I wasn’t any worse for wear the next day, so I knew I wasn’t hurting the injury,” he added.
Zerr’s gold in discus came on a 31.37 metre toss, while 30.19 metres was good for gold in the javelin.
The ‘weight throw’ is a curious event, not seen in high school or Olympic competitions. It’s similar to the hammer throw but twice as heavy and on a much shorter leash.
“It’s a 25-pound steel ball on a handle,” said Zerr. “You don’t want to spin more than once, or that ball will take you away.
“I’d never done it before but one fellow showed me how and I took four practice runs,” he said. “In the competition, I threw two bad ones, then my last one was better.”
The 8.94 metre toss gained Zerr his third silver of the meet, held at Cranbrook’s College of the Rockies facility.
Next year at Kelowna, there could be two Zerrs competing.
“Christal was excited to see all the women involved,” said Marcus. “She’s getting back into running 5Ks and we’ve been running on the new track in Hope.”
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