Six swimmers - including Jesse van Muijlwijk of COurtenay - made up the Zone 2 team at this year’s 55-Plus BC Games held in Abbotsford, and although few in number, they scored third overall out of 12 zones and brought home an impressive 49 medals between them.
van Muijlwijk medaled in eight out of nine events, winning four individual golds in the 25-metre, 50m, and 100m breaststroke as well as the 400m freestyle, and silver in the 200m free. He added a gold with the 100m IM relay, silver with the 100m free relay, and bronze with the mixed 200m relay.
Nancy Ryan of Nanaimo, who represents the area on the BC Seniors Games Zone 2 board, medaled in all of her events. She won silver in the 25m, 50m, and 100m backstroke, as well as the 100m and 200m freestyle; bronze in the 50m freestyle, and gold in both the 100m free relay and the 100m IM relay.
Philip de Ridder of Nanaimo won silver in the 800m free, and bronze in the 200m and 400m free. He also won gold with the 100m IM relay, silver with the 100m free relay, and bronze with the mixed 200m relay.
Joanne van Oosten of Nanaimo won silver in the 25m and 50m breaststroke as well as the 25m backstroke, and bronze in the 50m backstroke. Joanne earned gold in both the 100m free relay and the 100m IM relay, and bronze in the mixed 200m relay.
Inge Hornby of Nanaimo won gold in the 50m breaststroke, silver in the 100m IM, and bronze in the 25m breaststroke and 25m backstroke. She also brought home gold in both the 100m free relay and the 100m IM relay.
New to the team this year was Jessica Colasanto of the qathet region, who also medaled in all of her events. She won gold in the 25m butterfly, silver in the 50m and 200m freestyle, and bronze in the 25m, 100m, and 400m free. She was part of the gold-winning 100m free and 100m IM relays, and won bronze with the mixed 200m relay.
In an interesting twist, four medals were awarded to Zone 2 for cross-zone participants in the men’s relays, thanks to van Muijlwijk taking the lead to register for the events and finding willing swimmers to round out the missing spots.
A highlight for the group was when Jesse serendipitously ended up in car service with the meet’s oldest member, Betty Brussel of Zone 4, who at age 99 has become royalty on the pool deck and holds 14 meet records. Jesse of course recognized her and greeted her with accolades, but they quickly discovered that both are originally from Holland; Betty is a fan of Jesse’s political cartoons which appear in the Dutch newspapers to which she subscribes, so the accolades became mutual, and Betty joined the Zone 2 team for the remainder of the social events, to everyone’s great delight (everyone on the Zone 2 team, at least).
van Muijlwijk holds a meet record in the 25m breaststroke, and Zone 2–which is comprises North Island and qathet Regional District–holds 13 records in total, all of which stood in this meet. The team encourages any new members to join next year. Prior to the pandemic, the Zone 2 swim team averaged 17 members, and swelled to 30 when the games were held on the Island–as they will be when Nanaimo hosts the games in 2025.
Detailed results can be found at www.bcseniorsgames.net/results. For more information, contact Zone 2 swim coordinator Nancy Ryan at ryannancy182@gmail.com.