It was an impressive medal haul for Delta athletes at last weekend’s B.C. Winter Games in Greater Vernon.
Delta Gymnastics Society’s Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) program has a reputation of shining bright at the biennial multi-sport competition and it certainly lived up to that reputation and then some.
Dominating the Vancouver-Coastal Zone 5 roster, the DGS contingent not only captured the Canadian Competitive Program (CCP) 7-and-8 team event, but also returned home with 12 individual medals.
The gold-medal winning team featured Mackenzie Hayes, Madelyn Hickling, Aliya Mori, Clare Steinke, Annabelle Ma and Miele Teiffel.
Hayes went on to add two more gold medals, capturing the CCP 8 floor and vault events. She rounded out her medal haul with a silver in the CCP 8 individual all-around competition, finishing right behind Delta teammate and gold medalist Sydney Hollas who was the lone returning member from the 2020 Games team. Steinke was sixth.
Hollas also won silver on the floor and bronze on the uneven bars.
Steinke added a second gold to her collection by also capturing the CCP 8 beam event. Ma made it two Delta gymnasts on the podium with a bronze. Teiffel captured silver in the CCP 7 vault competition to go along with her team gold.
Hickling was another multi-medal winner with a bronze in the CCP 7 uneven bars.
In Level 7 all-around, Mori, Tieffel and Hickling were fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.
Meanwhile, Deltans helped the Vancouver-Coastal team roll to four straight wins and capture gold in ringette. The team included: Nerissa Beeby, Amorey Cornmiller, Farryn Leigh, Rachael Pugsley and Gabriella Bender.
Delta Thistle Curling Club members Sydney Taylor-Hunt, Alexandria Halliday, Brooke Halliday and Erin Fitzgibbon returned home with a bronze medal.
The Games were originally scheduled to take place in February of 2022 before organizers decided to postpone to 2023 due to several factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic and flooding and wildfires in many parts of the province.
The official name of the event remained the Greater Vernon 2022 BC Winter Games.
The 895 athletes, 300 coaches and 140 officials that attended the Games hailed from 122 communities across the province and represented 84 constituencies in BC. Fifteen different sports were featured over the four days. The BC Winter and BC Summer Games were established in 1978 to bring young people around BC together through sport and friendship.
