Skip to content

Cowichan Valley athletes off to Canada Summer Games

Valley will be represented in basketball, lacrosse, cycling and rowing
29964711_web1_220804-CCI-canada-summer-games-logo_1

Half a dozen athletes from the Cowichan Valley are off to Ontario for the Canada Summer Games, which get underway in the Niagara Region this Saturday and run until Aug. 21.

Brentwood College School standout Dylan Gage from Mill Bay will suit up for Team BC in basketball. Gage was a first-team all-star as a Grade 11 player as Brentwood finished third in the 2A provincial championships this spring. The son of Brentwood senior boys head coach Blake Gage, Dylan Gage won a gold medal in 3x3 basketball at the 2018 BC Summer Games in the Cowichan Valley.

U16 Cowichan Thunder teammates Anikka MacDonald and Elora Waardenburg of Cobble Hill will play for Team BC in box lacrosse. This will be the first time representing the province in box lacrosse, although both girls have previously played for Team BC in field lacrosse. Waardenburg’s mom, Naomi Walser, will be behind the bench for Team BC after recently helping coach Haudenosaunee (previously known as the Iroquois Nation) at the 2022 World Lacrosse Women’s World Championship and The World Games this summer.

Evan Russell of Mill Bay will compete in cycling at the Canada Summer Games. Russell is an international competitor and the defending two-time winner of the U23 men’s race at the BC Road Race provincial championships.

Gunnar Platt of Shawnigan Lake and Mira Calder of Mill Bay will represent B.C. in rowing. The son of Shawnigan Lake School head rowing coach Julie Platt, Gunnar Platt competed for Canada at the CanAmMex International Regatta in July, winning gold in the men’s pair and silver in the eight. Calder, the daughter of Brentwood graduate and 2008 Olympic silver medallist Dave Calder, who recently returned to the school as its new head of rowing, won a gold and two bronze medals at the 2018 BC Summer Games in the Cowichan Valley.

Duncan wrestler Joaquim Dalton-Pereira qualified to represent B.C., but injured his shoulder at the qualification tournament and had to withdraw from the Canada Summer Games.