Area athletes uncovered four gold medals on skis Saturday at the B.C. Winter Games in Kamloops.
Zara Bucher of Enderby won the women’s 500-metre nordic ski race, while Pedar Ree of Vernon topped the Midget men’s 500 sprint and Lucas Sadesky of Vernon struck gold in the juvenile men’s 500 sprint. Coldstream’s Evan Bush took the U17 Big Air gold medal.
Bush also pocketed a silver in Saturday’s freestyle slopestyle, while Kiyoshi Comley of Vernon snagged a judo silver in the U38-kilogram men’s division.
In speed skating Saturday, Nate Benn of the Vernon Vortex earned silver in the U14 Men’s 400, silver in the 3,000 mixed relay and bronze in the 200. Laura Hall of Vernon won a silver in the U16 Women’s 1,500 speed skate.
Benn used his explosive acceleration from the start line in the sprints, while anchoring the Zone 2 relay team for silver.
Other bronze medals Saturday came from: Oliver Young in the two-run GS ski; Tate Garrod in the U14 Men’s slopestyle; Jaxon Peters in the U17 big air and Jamie Robinson in one-run GS.
Zone 2, featuring eight Vernon players, bagged a bronze medal in ringette. Friday results appeared in Sunday’s Morning Star. Zone 2 (Okanagan) finished third in the Games with 90 medals (22 gold). Vancouver Coastal ruled the table with 128 medals (43 gold), while Fraser River was second with 95 (31 gold).
The Vortex, meanwhile, is now well positioned to progress towards placing representatives on the Canada Games team and to move ahead towards qualifying for the Junior World Championships. Next up for the Vortex is the BC Short Track Championships this weekend in Matsqui, a meet that is used as a qualifier for the Western Canadian Championships, March 17-18, in Abbotsford.
