Athletes from Parksville Qualicum Beach and surrounding areas will be among the more than 3,000 of the province’s best emerging high performance talents that will be competing at the 2018 BC Summer Games in Cowichan.
The games will kick off July 19 and run until July 22 22.
The participants from Parksville Qualicum Beach region will compete in a variety of individual and team sports such as baseball, golf, equestrian events, softball, lacrosse, triathlon, sailing, soccer, swimming and Special Olympics events.
They all trained hard to earn a spot in the Vancouver Island-Central Coast team.
The athletes representing our area are: Baseball — Anson McGorman (Parksville), Will Fox (Parksville), Ellis Vugteveen (Errington), Ethan Dean (Nanoose Bay)
Equestrian — Gracie O’Connel (Parksville)
Golf — Gavyn Knight (Parksville), Mathew Grimes (Qualicum Beach)
Box Lacrosse — Brenden Jamieson (Parksville)
Softball — Cassidy Kellow (Parksville)
Synchronized swimming— Sydney Waldie and Pascha Nemlander (Parksville)
Triathlon — Luke Hubner (Qualicum Beach)
Athletics — Samuel Morrison (Nanoose Bay)
Sailing — Joshua Jefers (Nanoose Bay)
Soccer — Cameron Basara (Nanoose Bay)
Towed Water Sports — Maxwell Jeffery (Nanoose Bay), Tegan Jeffery (Nanoose Bay)
Swimming — Lochlan Rogers (Qualicum), Veronica Hall (Parksville)
Swimming Special Olympics — Shayne Blandin (Qualicum), Clara Kodweiss (Qualicum Beach)
The athletes are an average of 14 years old and for most, this will be their first experience at a multi-sport games. Eighteen different sports will be on display.
The BC Games, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, has been the starting point for many Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
Thirty-five alumni competed for Canada in the 2016 Summer Games in Rio, including Georgia Simmerling (cycling), Kirsten Sweetland (triathlon), Jamie Broder (beach volleyball), Evan Dunfee (race walk), and Byron Green (wheelchair rugby).