As special guests arrived at the provincial reception last night, we caught up with past BC Winter Games medal winner, Bryan Harman. Harman won bronze in the 1m and silver in the 3m springboard diving events at the 1984 Winter Games, hosted right here in Fort St. John. "I had never done a 3 metre dive until that competition" said Harman, "it's amazing to have the games back, especially being a past winner, I know how much these events mean to the participants".
This year Harman's role is a bit different. He is the Chair of Alpine Skiing, taking place at Bear Mountain in Dawson Creek, however he is no stranger to it. In 1988 Dawson Creek hosted the BC Winter Games and Harman and 2 friends were charged with organizing alpine skiing. The event was planned for 2 days of competition and right before it was set to take place a chinook hit the region and melted all the snow. They ended up having to cancel the event.
This year there will be no such issues, assured Harman. The weather has been cooperating with some good cold snaps, which allowed them to have all 5 of the mountains snow guns operating. During the last cold snap they nearly emptied the dugout at the mountain and ran their snow guns 24 hours a day for 8 straight days. "The snow has to be deep enough for safety nets and race markers" noted Harman.
"None of this would have been possible without the community and corporate support" said Harman. Bear Mountain Ski Hill is one of the events signature sponsors and the owners and staff have worked tirelessly to help put these events on.
Today men's and women's slalom is taking place and tomorrow you can see the team dual slalom event. All events are free and open to the public so come out and enjoy the events. For a detailed sports schedule visit www.bcwintergames.ca