It was a big haul in Parksville on the province’s biggest stage for Connaught Skating.
The Richmond club returned with nine medals from the 2018 B.C. Yukon Sectional Championships — capping months of hard work. Five skaters have also earned the opportunity to represent B.C. at the upcoming Skate Canada Western Challenge in Montreal and 22 of the 35 skaters achieved personal best scores.
Connaught made a huge impression at the entry Juvenile level, including gold medal skates for Neo Tran (13), Eason Zhu (U12) and Ciara Iorio (Juvenile Women U12). In fact, it was a near Richmond sweep in Iorio’s division with teammates Rebecca Mah and Ellie Cheung finishing second and fourth respectively.
Maisie St.James added bronze in Pre-Juvenile Women U11 and Anya Li was right behind her in fourth.
“All of these are really important introductory provincial levels of skating and we liked nailed it,” said Connaught director of programs and competitive head coach Keegan Murphy. “Not only were our numbers high in terms of participants but are results were high too. That was really great.
“To have that many personal best scores is very satisfying. We had all the coaches there and the team environment really helps too.”
Ehren Chang booked his ticket to Montreal by earning silver in Junior Men. He will be joined by Novice Men’s silver medalist Wesley Chiu, Senior Men’s bronze winner Shawn Cuevas and top nine Pre-Novice finishers David Li and Victor Lim.
Li was Connaught’s surprise story of the competition.
At just 10, he was making his debut in Pre-Novice and nearly reached the podium, finishing fourth.
“We knew what he was capable of and thought he would sneak into the top nine but David came up with huge personal best scores,” added Murphy. “None of us thought he could finish that high. He’s so young that he doesn’t even really know what’s going on. He was asking me where Montreal was.”
Connaught results included:
Pre-Juvenile Women U11
3. Maisie St. James 4. Anya Li 10. Ashley Peng 13. Bianca Gasparetto 15. Clara van Muiswinkel, 16. Jesse Sun 17. Ami Wong 20. Jewel Ren. 24 entries
Pre-Juvenile Men
1. Eason Zhu (provincial champion)
Juvenile Women U12
1. Ciara Iorio (provincial champion) 2. Rebecca Mah 4. Ellie Cheung 8. Alexa Christianson 10. Nayali Liu 11. Dorothy Yuen 14. Emily Leung.
Juvenile Women U14
12. Madeline Kim 16. Keoana Tan 24. Elizabeth Shepelev
Juvenile Men U13
1. Neo Tran (provincial champion)
Pre-Novice Men
4. David Li 10. Victor Lum 11. Alec Roueche.
Novice Men
2. Wesley Chiu
Novice Women
13. Caitlin Tai
Junior Men
2. Ehren Chang
Junior Women
9. Jana de Jong 10. Serena Woo
Senior Men
3. Shawn Cuevas
Senior Women
5. Danielle Gordon
