When he hopped on the ferry to Nanaimo last week, Vikramjit Gondara felt that podium finishes were a possibility for him at the BC Summer Games.
He didn’t necessarily envision climbing all the way to the top step of the podium twice.
But that’s exactly how it played out for the throwing-event phenom – Gondara unleashed a personal-best throw of 55.83 metres to win the hammer title, and added a second gold with a 50.26m effort in the discus.
“I was expecting to go well, but two gold medals were a pretty good surprise for me,” marvelled Gondara, who trains with the Valley Royals track and field club and is going into Grade 10 at W.J. Mouat Secondary. “I knew I had some pretty tough competition.
“It was a good experience, a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
Gondara’s performances highlighted a terrific showing by Abbotsford’s athletes, who combined for 22 medals at the Games.
• Abby’s wrestlers demonstrated the depth of the local scene by combining for six individual medals on the mat.
Eknoor Bajwa and Gagan Malay can call themselves BC Games champs, winning the 51 kg boys and 51 kg girls divisions, respectively. Navdeep Dhillon (silver, boys 60 kg), Pravi Dhaliwal (silver, girls 60 kg), Jaskarn Khela (bronze, boys 57 kg) and Navreet Gill (bronze, boys 66 kg) also climbed the podium.
• The Fraser Valley Zone 3 fared extremely well in team sports, highlighted by the gold medal-winning boys rugby team which featured an eye-popping eight Abby athletes: Teo DeGianni, Colten Dorozan, Payton Haqq-Alexander, Darius Kelly, Carter Miller, Sachi Peterson, Dylan Roach and Samuel Uko.
• The Fraser Valley girls rugby squad, which included Sophia Belsher, Mackenzie Carson and Nakisa Levale, also took gold.
• The Fraser Valley A girls basketball squad, which included Abbotsford’s Kyla Smith, Nicola Peters and Sapna Deo, also claimed the gold medal.
• The Fraser Valley boys soccer team, with Abby’s Jehmrode Kahlon, was also golden.
• Shelby Kwak, Sydney Epp and the Valley girls softball squad won the gold medal.
• Ashley Huberts was part of the gold medal-winning Valley girls volleyball team.
• Coleton Lundy and the Valley boys field lacrosse team won gold.
• Special Olympian Paige Norton excelled in track and field, winning bronze in the long jump (2.42m) and shot put (4.14m).
• Also on the track, Devon Kular picked up a silver medal in the 4x400m relay, joining forces with Chilliwack’s Marcus Aubin, Langley’s Will Riley and Surrey’s Luke Forsythe to clock a runner-up time of 3:53.91.
• A pair of Special Olympics swimmers climbed the podium – Todd Moore took silver in the 50m butterfly and bronze in the 50m breaststroke, and Scott Gaudet won bronze in the 50m butterfly.
• On the towed watersports scene, Connor Batkin took bronze in the boys age 10-13 slalom.
Abbotsford will play host to the 2016 BC Summer Games.
