Connaught’s own Wesley Chiu was among the winners at the B.C. Yukon Section Annual Awards Banquet in Burnaby.
Chiu received the Male Youth Promise Award thanks to an outstanding 2016-17 competitive season — highlighted by a silver medal performance at the Skate Canada Challenge in Pierrefonds, QC back in December.
Competing for the very first time at the event in the Pre-Novice Division, the Grade 6 Richmond Christian student pulled off a superb long program to jump into a podium position. Chiu was sitting ninth out of 42 competitors heading into his final skate. He was among the youngest skaters in the division.
“Because they skate in reserve order, we didn’t know exactly how well he had done,” said his coach Keegan Murphy, at the time. “We just sat there and watched him move up the standings, one by one, after the skaters in front of him had finished.”
It was the best result for a Connaught Skating in Pre-Novice Men’s since Mitchell Gordon won the event back in 2010.
Earlier, Chiu won gold at the B.C./Yukon Championships which earned him the opportunity to represent his province back east. He is now busy preparing for his 2017-18 season that will see him move up to the Novice Men’s Division. He finished first at that level in the short and long program skates at last month’s 2017 Super Series Vancouver Island Skate in Parksville.
