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Pair of Abbotsford residents nominated for Sport BC Awards

Wrestler Michaeljeet Grewal, gymnastics coach Richard Ikeda up for honours
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Wrester Michaeljeet Grewal (left) and gymnastics coach Richard Ikeda are both finalists for 2025 Sport BC Awards.

Wrestler Michaeljeet Grewal and gymnastics coach Richard Ikeda have both been announced as finalists for the 2025 Sport BC Athlete of the Year Awards.

The 57th annual event occurs in Vancouver on March 6.

Grewal, a Grade 12 W.J. Mouat student, has been nominated in the high school male athlete of the year category, while Ikeda is up for male coach of the year.

Grewal had an excellent year on the mat and kicked off 2024 by dominating at the British Columbia School Sports provincials in February. He won gold in the 90 kilograms senior boys division and helped the Mouat Hawks win the aggregate championship. Grewal's gold medal winning bout was also named the boys division’s Most Outstanding Match.

He went on to win gold at the 2024 U17 Pan-American Championships in the Dominican Republic in June, which was his second straight gold medal win at the event in the 92 kg division. Grewal then finished fifth at the 2024 U17 World Championships in Jordan in August.

The other finalists in his category are Vernon's Cole Bugden (basketball, football and golf) and North Vancouver's Emmet Ward (basketball, football, rugby and track and field.

Ikeda is the current club director at Abbotsford's Twisters Gymnastics Club and has been a coach on the local and provincial gymnastics scene for close to two decades. Aside from his duties at Twisters, he coached a member of the Senior National Team and has been part of Team BC for many years.

He was a key figure in the development of local Olympian Zachary Clay, who competed at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics as part of the men's artistic gymnastics team.

Ikeda also had an outstanding amateur career and competed nationally and internationally from 1990 to 2003. He was a four-time all-around gold medalist at the Canadian championships (1996, 2001, 2002 and 2003), and added three all-around bronze medals (1993, 1995, 1999) and one silver (2000). In 2003, Richard added gold on the high bar and silver on the parallel bars. Ikeda competed at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics and also captured several medals at the Commonwealth Games.

He was inducted into the Abbotsford Sports Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2022 he was named a Provincial Performance Advisor in the discipline of men’s artistic gymnastics for Gymnastics BC.

Ikeda is competing against Kamloops coach Dylan Armstrong (athletics) and Richmond's Igor Gantsevich (fencing) in his category.

For the full list of finalists, visit sportbc.com/2025/01/17/sport-bc-announces-57th-annual-athlete-of-the-year-award-finalists.



Ben Lypka

About the Author: Ben Lypka

I joined the Abbotsford News in 2015.
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