Ryan Cochrane will end up in a few sports halls of fame, provincial to national, before it’s all done. But he said he is honoured his hometown sports hall beat the others to the punch.
The two-time Olympic-medallist swimmer headlines the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2019 announced Wednesday.
“I feel extremely grateful, and it’s a fantastic honour,” said Cochrane, now a real estate agent in Victoria.
“As a little kid, all you want to do is play sports for fun. I was able to take it further, and had so much support from the Island enabling me to do that. It was a great ride from start to finish. I am so thankful to have been an athlete for 20 years and to have been able to travel the world and represent Canada.”
Also being enshrined with the Class of 2019 are field hockey great Rob Short, who captained Canada at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, two-time Pan American Games gold-medallist softball pitcher Mike Piechnick and 2008 Beijing Paralympics bronze-medallist sailors Stacie Louttit and John McRoberts.
Also being inducted are Wynn Gmitroski, who coached several Olympians and world championships and Commonwealth Games medallists in track and field, and international figure skating official Susan Morriss.
Going into the builders category is the Victoria Motorcycle Club. Among the oldest motorized sporting clubs in Canada, the VMC has produced several national and international champion riders in its 110-year history.
Alex Robertson, nicknamed The Big A, will be inducted in the media category for his career as CHEK-TV sports director from 1974 to 2003. Robertson covered athletes on the Island from Grant Fuhr to Eli Pasquale among his 14,000 stories and also interviewed the likes of Tiger Woods, Muhammed Ali and Wayne Gretzky.
The induction ceremony will be held Oct. 26 at the Westin Bear Mountain.
The Victoria Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1991. Plaques honouring the Class of 2019 will join those of the 232 previous inductees which hang on the concourse walls of Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
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