Peace athletes take home hardware from B.C. Winter Games

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — Peace region athletes took home nine medals from the B.C. Winter Games over the weekend.

In total, the Cariboo-North East zone took home 27 medals from the games.

Badminton coach Rishav Sharma’s team of eight took home two gold, two silver, and three bronze medals from the games.

Cas Wheat and Rhea Lawrence took home bronze for badminton mixed doubles.

Tanisha Mustafa won silver, Lawrence won gold, and Wheat won silver in the skills competition. Rishav said in the skills competition, each athlete was assigned a coach and given specific skills to do, such as certain shots or serves.

His team also earned the Most Sportsmanlike Team award in badminton out of all eight zones.

Sharma said his team played really hard in their first big tournament.

“This was one of their first tournaments in their life, outside of the Fort St. John tournament,” Sharma said.

“It was provincial level, so they had a chance to compete against some of the national level players as well in the BC Winter Games.”

He says his team is now more serious about badminton and knows how hard they must work.

The BC Winter Games were held in Vernon from March 23rd to 26th.

Complete list of athletes from the Peace and what they placed:

Fort St. John:

• Elizabeth Binu, badminton athlete. 4th in girls doubles.
• Rhea Lawrence, badminton athlete. 3rd in mixed doubles.
• Tanisha Mustafa, badminton athlete. 10th in girls singles.
• Advai Nair, badminton athlete. 5th in boys doubles.
• Cas Wheat, badminton athlete. 3rd in mixed doubles.
• Rebecca Robinson, karate athlete. 3rd in Team Kumite Girls Team, 5th in Kata intermediate girls, 7th in Kumite Intermediate girls approx. +157 centimetres.

Charlie Lake:

• Kori Meyer, badminton athlete. 4th in girls doubles.
• Ezra Wiebe, badminton athlete. 5th in boys doubles.

Dawson Creek:

• Joey Webb, curling athlete. 7th in team competition girls.
• Dax Norman, judo athlete. For zone one, 3rd place in the team competition.

Montney:

• Connor Vig, badminton athlete. 9th in boys singles.