Two Rossland athletes brought home medals from the BC Winter Games in Penticton.
Andrew Sibbald won both a silver and a bronze medal in diving, and Jasime Drolet won a bronze in cross country skiing.
It took a lot of dedication for Sibbald to earn his spots on the podium.
Because neither Rossland nor Trail have a diving club, Sibbald travels to the Lower Mainland once a month to practice with the South Surrey White Rock Divers.
“Andrew is super dedicated, most of my other kids wouldn’t do that,” said Lisa Martin, his White Rock coach. “He trains really hard by himself, we try to give him all the pointers we can while he’s up in Trail. He comes down once a month, learns some new dives and then goes back up there to perfect them.”
That dedication paid off when Sibbald won the silver in the Boys 3-meter dive and the bronze in the Boys 1-meter.
“It’s very exciting, because coming into this competition there were a lot of pretty good divers that I haven’t dove with in a long time,” said Andrew. “I was really worried, but getting second place was exciting.”
Andrew’s goal for the Games was to score more than 200, a score he beat in both of his events, with a score of 200.9 in the 1-meter dive and 200.3 in the 3-meter. A bonus on top of his two medals.
Drolet won her bronze in the Individual Start Midget Girls Classic with a time of 13:39.3.
“I feel like it was a good result,” she told the Rossland News.
Drolet felt the competition went well and found everyone very friendly. The course itself was fairly flat, with only a few hills, and she felt that competitions she’d participated in earlier in the year had helped prepare her for the Games.