Halifax, NS (February 23, 2011) -- Team BC's badminton team earned a full set of medals, the figure skaters had a six-medal haul and the men of judo won two gold medals. Those were just some of Wednesday's highlights with four days left to go at the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax and Team BC sitting in third place in the medal standings.
Adonis Wong (Vancouver) won Gold in the pre novice men's category in figure skating while Jessica Jiang (Richmond) and Nikolas Wamsteeker (Langley) were also at the top of the podium in the pre novice dance category. Jayda Jurome (Kelowna) won her Silver with a total combined score of 82.91 in pre novice women's while Haley Sales (Kelowna) was right behind her with a Bronze medal and a total score of 81.94.
Two of Team BC's Special Olympics skaters won a Silver medal each. Matthew Lai (Richmond) earned his medal in the Special Olympics Men's Level 2 while Allan Tsang (Vancouver) won his for Special Olympics Men's Level 3.
Brandon Jobb (Abbotsford) and Cohen Hocking (Delta) brought home Gold for Team BC in the Men's 81kg and 66kg Judo events respectively. Jobb defeated Jonah Burt of Ontario in the final scoring an Ippon while Hocking scored two Yuko to beat Andrew Yuen of Saskatchewan.
"It hasn't sunk in yet." Cohen said shortly after his win. "My goal was to be on the podium, and everything just kind of went well today. I feel that it's partly luck, but I've worked a lot in the last while."
The mixed doubles badminton team of Christin Tsai (Richmond) and Nathan Choi (Vancouver) played their way through three pairs of higher seeded players to win Gold in an upset. "We were pretty happy to make the semi-finals in the beginning so this is totally unexpected," said Tsai. "We were the underdogs so we were just trying to do our best," added Choi.
In women's singles, Phyllis Chan (Vancouver) had won all of her matches up to Wednesday's Gold medal match which she lost in two games to top seed Michelle Li from Ontario, leaving her with the Silver. Mixed doubles Gold medallist Tsai also medalled in the singles, winning in two games for the Bronze.
Against some stiff competition from Ontario, Kailee Darlington (Whistler) was able to proudly march to the Bronze medal podium in the Giant Slalom at Ski Wentworth. And back in Halifax, BC's table tennis teams won the Bronze in both the men's and the ladies team competition.
Team BC has brought a dedicated team of 242 athletes, 74 coaches, three National Artists and 22 mission staff to the Games in Halifax. Approximately 2,700 athletes, coaches, managers and officials have come to the Games from every province and territory in Canada.
The Canada Games is a national multi-sport Games competition that brings together the best athletes from each Canadian province and territory. The primary objective of the Games and the Games movement is national and provincial sport development of Canadian youth.
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For full Team BC results go to teambc.org. Photos to accompany this press release can be downloaded at teambc.org/photos
Media Contact:
Jan Mansfield
Team BC Communications Manager
januscom@shaw.ca; 902-719-8093