Sunshine Coast senior athletes did their community proud with an impressive medal haul at this year's B.C. Senior Games Sept. 15 to 18 in Courtenay/Comox.
The Lower Mainland team (zone four) finished third overall in the standings with 337 medals with Coast athletes accounting for 41 of those. Vancouver Island North finished first overall with 479 medals.
The largest account for the medals came from the swim team as they came home with 34 medals (10 gold, 13 silver and 11 bronze) - more than double the number of Sunshine Coast medals from the 2009 Games.
For the 2010 Games, the swim team added another three members, bringing the total to nine (four men and five women). And for a second year, expert coaching was provided by Pat Dickie from the Sechelt Aquatic Centre during the months preceding the competitions.
The team consisted of Manfred Baur, Linda Pelton-Duff, Marilyn Adams, Jack Adams, Lucille Oakey, Bruce McDonald, Christine Chandler, Fred Lerner and Jung Shin.
In track and field, Gibsons Barry Barone competed at his first Senior Games running in four tough races, coming away with two gold, one silver and one bronze medal.
Sechelt's Liz Dilasser also came away with a silver in the 1,500 metres.
In darts, Halfmoon Bay's Dennis Johnson was ninth in 65-plus men's singles and fifth in the doubles competition while Sechelt's Joyce Jackson won a bronze in the men's and women's 55 to 64 doubles event and ninth in women's singles.
The Legends men's 70-plus hockey team, based in Sechelt, won silver.
Two Coast dragon boat teams also participated with the mixed and women's teams using strength accumulated over the past five months of practice to achieve good race times.
The competition from other teams was fierce and, while the 46 paddlers did not come home with medals, there is satisfaction in participating in a challenging sport, in working hard and in playing hard. The mixed team, called Dragons in Motion for purposes of the Games, had their best time in the B finals, only seven seconds from achieving gold, while the Sunshine Coast Dragons team finished in seventh spot.
