Burnaby martial artists won a yeoman’s share of medals at the B.C. Winter Games in Mission last week.
The Delta Fraser River karate team garnered a total of 13 medals, more than one-third of the 34 total medals won by zone 4 Burnaby athletes.
Mark Wong, Julia McLean and Angie Wakelin all won individual gold medals in their respective sparring weight classes.
Matt Bickel, Matthew Chenge, Sara Ng, Gurpartap Hothi and Jacob Mand also picked up gold in the team kumite.
The Burnaby team of individual silver medalist Stephanie Zaborniak, Natasha Lam, Kimberly Logan, MacLean and Wakelin also won the girls’ team sparring silver.
Both zone girls’ and boys’ teams took bronze in kata or forms.
Parris Gill, Adrianna Milkovic, Hothi, Justin Ng, Lam, Michael Plunkett, Ng and Justin Ng also won individual bronze.
Amara Jarinen and Stephanie Sulaver both won gold medals in judo.
Andy Lin placed first in the standing male individual sprint in cross-country skiing.
Vasilisa Matantseva earned a silver medal in juvenile ladies figure skating.
Naveena Leong placed third in girls’ barebow match play.
Burnaby won the gold and silver medal in netball, solidifying the city’s claim as the home of netball.
An all-Burnaby team of Vanessa Agonos, Jasmine Campbell, Kathryn Dawson, Kiersten Hagen, Michelle Kao, Emily Makihara, Alex Montinola, Nasseem Vazinkhoo, Megan Widmer, Katherine Widmer, Emily Chan, Christina Lee, Sophia Chen and Michelle Lelik took gold in netball.
The zone’s No. 2 team was also made up entirely of Burnaby players. The team of Cynthia Huang, Sonya Kung, Emma Binstead, Angela Yu, Manreet Bhullar, Mima Zaki, Hailey Kuntz and Katherine Widmer earned the silver medal.
Zone 4s curling rink led by Brayden Carpenter, rounded out by Burnaby third Tyler Proctor and second Breyden Chong, and lead Horace Mak of New Westminster, defeated Team Ueda from the North Shore Winter Club 5-4, scoring a deuce in the eighth and a game-winning steal in the ninth in the gold-medal final.
Nikita May of Burnaby also shared in a team gold in girls’ gymnastics.
Delta Fraser River zone 4’s ringette team, including Burnaby’s Melissa Wong, Paige Coe-Chow, Emily Chow, Natara Wong and Kelly Tucker, took the silver medal in the final against Thompson/Okanagan.
“It’s so much fun to play with other incredible players who were once our enemies,” said 15-year-old Wong in an email. “Now we are all singing together and got to go for the gold. The B.C. Winter Games have been an amazing experience.”
Burnaby’s Carina Bi, Jordan Beatty and Trevor Yu also shared in a silver medal in badminton.
The zone 4 girls’ hockey team, including Jenna Velji, Megan Lai, Raman Rai, Kiana Tsui and Stephanie Moy also took home the silver medal.
Burnaby Special Olympians Mary Armstrong, David Wong and Nicholas Bobak shared a silver medal in mixed basketball.
Natasha Leslie of Burnaby also picked up a second-place medal in wheelchair basketball.
Burnaby’s 34 total medals was the lion’s share of zone 4’s 59 podium finishes.
Fraser River Delta placed fourth overall behind first place Fraser Valley with 106 aggregate medals.
Vancouver-Squamish finished runner-up, garnering 87 medals, including a Games-high 35 gold.
Thompson-Okanagan placed third with 20 gold and 72 total medals.
