by Neil Corbett
Black Press
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The BC Games gymnastics competition, which has been contested at Mission Secondary School Friday and Saturday, shows the quality of gymnasts is improving across the province.
"It has been really good," said Michelle Ricks, provincial advisor for gymnastics, of the calibre on display. "Some zones are still stronger than others, but it's good to see some of the outlying zones medalling."
The Fraser River-Delta team (Zone 4) has been consistently placing athletes in the medals, buoyed by one particularly strong club team.
"Delta Gymnastics has been represented well," said Ricks.
On Friday, the top men's team was Fraser River-Delta with a team score of 207.35, slightly ahead of second place Thompson-Okanagan (Zone 2) at 206.9. The traditionally strong Fraser Valley team (Zone 3) finished third with 199.2.
Caleb Richmond of Zone 4 was the top all-around scorer on Friday, for his combined scores on six events. He won the horizontal bars, tied for first on vault, and placed third in parallel bars.
Drew Kanigan of Zone 2 was second all-around, which included first on the parallel bars and a third-place tie on rings.
Lucas Fabian of Zone 2 and Que Bidewell of Zone 4 tied for third all-around. Fabian tied for gold on the vault, while Bidewell won bronze on the pommel horse, and scored highly in all events.
On the women's side, Ella Rogers of Zone 4 won the floor event on Saturday morning, placed highly in all four events, and tied for first all-around. Tied with her was Brienna Gapsar, of Zone3, who won on beam.
A very close third was Sage Bishop Beaurone of Zone 3 who took first in both vault and bars.
The women's team competition continues Saturday.