The torrid pace being set on golf courses by Island youth continues unabated as 15-year-old Nolan Thoroughgood of Royal Colwood and 13-year-old Akari Hayashi of Uplands swept to the respective boys’ and girls’ gold medals Saturday at the 2016 B.C. Summer Games in Abbotsford.
Thoroughgood, the Royal Bay student last week crowned the youngest winner in the 114-year history of the B.C. men's amateur championship, shot 69-71 for a two-round even-par total of 140 for an emphatic victory six strokes ahead of the silver medallist.
The 2016 B.C. Games, which began Thursday and conclude today, feature 460 participants from the Vancouver Island-Central Coast team, of which 213 are from Greater Victoria. That includes athletes, coaches and support staff.
This is the entry-level multi-sport Games for athletes in this province along a path that could lead to the Canada Games, Commonwealth and Pan Am Games and Olympics. Twenty-three alumni from the B.C. Games go to Rio next month for the 2016 Summer Olympics. They include Island athletes Hilary Caldwell in swimming, Michael Mason in high jump, Kirsten Sweetland in triathlon, and Fred Winters and Jamie Broder in volleyball.
“It was the first time I ever represented an area, be it the Island, B.C. or Canada, and it was so exciting because of that,” Broder said of her experiences from the 2002 B.C. Games in Nanaimo. “It was my first multi-sport Games and it fuelled the fire.”
Other Olympians from the Island who came through the B.C. Games include cyclists Ryder Hesjedal, Erinne Willock, Gillian Carleton, and Geoff Kabush, runners Cam Levins and Gary Reed, triathlete Brent McMahon, diver Riley McCormick, soccer player Clare Rustad, wrestler Travis Cross, volleyball player Martin Reader, swimmers Alec Page, Rick Say and Richard Weinberger, Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn and Toronto Blue Jays left-fielder Michael Saunders.
