Kelowna club claims 28 medals at Okanagan Region Championships

The Kelowna Skating Club made a strong impression at the 2019 Okanagan Regional Figure Skating Championships this past weekend.Twenty-five local skaters travelled to Penticton for the event and returned home with 28 medals in total.Leading the way was Kelowna’s Sarah Mullins, the gold-medal winner in the Juvenile Women’s event, where she scored 26.05 points.Christiana Lock and Payton Bannerman finished 1-2 at the STAR 5 under-13 division. Bannerman went on to win another silver medal in the Elements category.Dominating performances led to six full podium sweeps for the local team.The first sweep occurred at the STAR 9 event, as Megan Yudin, Konstantina Lock, and Gabrielle Jugnauth took the gold, silver and bronze medals, respectively.The 11-year-old Lock won an additional silver medal in the Open Elements event.The next sweep took place at the Pre-Novice Short Program, with Emily Sales, Mackenzie Nelmes and Ava Sanderson taking home the hardware.Sales will be representing B.C. next week at the Canada Winter Games in Red Deer.In the Pre-Novice Free Program, Sanderson led the way with a personal-best score of 45.49 points, followed by Kiera Atkins and Katie Jones with the silver and bronze medals.

At the Novice Level, 12-year-old Malayna Lesko led the pack in the short program, flanked by Gwenyth Preston and Abby Bulawka. The trio traded spots in the free program, as Preston, Bulawka and Lesko finished 1-2-3, respectively.

A young trio of talents also plugged the podium at the Pre-Juvenile level, as Ariana Rose, Calissa Adlem and Sophie Sanderson skated to gold, silver and bronze finishes, respectively. Rose paired her gold with a bronze from the Open Elements event.

Kelowna’s Amy Kim won a silver medal in the STAR 4 Elements division.

Rounding out the medal wins with bronze medals were Marina Land (STAR 6), Amelia Ponte (STAR 4 under 13) and Ollie Zhang (STAR 5 Elements).