The Greater Vernon 2022 BC Winter Games wrapped up on March 26 and several Squamish athletes brought home some hardware for their efforts.
Squamish had nine representatives in four different sports. The athletes are listed below:
- Brian McDonald – Archery
- Cash Cooper – Snowboarding
- Elijah Krumme – Freestyle Skiing
- Jonas Gaces – Snowboarding
- Julie Schaber – Archery
- Ryan Gates – Snowboarding
- Sasha Cromwell – Alpine Skiing
- Ty Reichert – Freestyle Skiing
- Zoe Henderson – Freestyle Skiing
A couple of medals were earned by the athletes in freestyle skiing.
In the U-14 male slopestyle event, Elijah Krumme brought home the silver medal and Ty Reichert finished eighth. In the U-14 male moguls event, Krumme finished seventh and Reichert finished 13th. Finally in U-14 male big air, Krumme again finished seventh and Reichert finished 13th.
Zoe Henderson earned the bronze medal in U-14 female moguls and finished fourth in both U-14 female slopestyle and U-14 female big air.
In snowboarding, Jonas Gaces and Cash Cooper finished in 11th and fourth place, respectively, in the male slopestyle event.
Squamish had a great showing in the male snowboard cross event as Ryan Gates earned the bronze medal for the Vancouver-Coastal region. Cooper and Gaces finished eighth and 17th in the event.
Julie Schaber and Brian McDonald had a good showing in archery. Schaber finished sixth in the two-day girls' compound sighted event, and McDonald finished fifth in the boys version of the same event.
Finally, Squamish’s lone representative in alpine skiing, Sasha Cromwell, finished 30th in male giant slalom and unfortunately did not finish in male slalom.
The friendly competition saw the Fraser River zone earn the most medals with 99 and Squamish’s region, Vancouver-Coastal, finished second with 89. Thompson-Okanagan earned third place with 81 and Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island-Central Coast, Cariboo-North East, Kootenays and North West finished out the rest of the eight regions.
The games were originally postponed from 2022 due to a variety of reasons including the COVID-19 pandemic as well as wildfires around the province. The event had about 1,300 athletes, coaches and officials participating along with 1,400 volunteers.
The first BC Winter Games was held in 1978 and, as of the completion of this past weekend’s games, there have been 31 in total. The BC Summer Games takes place in 2024 in Maple Ridge.
