Times Colonist from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada • 17

COMMONWEALTH GAMES Times Colonist Friday March 17 2006 A17 For many athletes, it's all about genetics 6 rv3) ji BY CLEVE DHEENSAW By Cleve Dheensaw Times Colonist sports staff The Rushton, Taylor and Willock families all have sons or daughters in Melbourne for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. But more than anything, the families are living embodiments of the Island's remarkably varied sporting i Tit r. it a i l-i ILl Canada's men's gymnastics team of, from left, Grant Golding, David Kikuchi, Kyle Shewfelt, Nathan Gafuik and Adam Wong celebrate after winning the Commonwealth Games gold medal at Rod Laver Arena on Thursday in Melbourne. Stu ForsterGetty Images Shewfelt's return golden Gymnast leads Canada to first-place finish; swimmers grab relay bronze culture. "We just did it all growing up in Courtenay track and field, cross-country, volleyball, baseball, basketball, hockey," said rookie ECHL hockey pro Adam Taylor of the Victoria Salmon Kings, whose brother, Nathan Taylor, will run the third leg on the Canadian 4x100 relay track team at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

Ironically, for Courtenay boys, the only activities the Taylors didn't do were snow sports on Mount Washington. "They were very, very active boys and would have done that, too, but we had to cut if off somewhere," chuckled mom, Colleen Taylor. Pete Rushton's two Victoria daughters, Andrea and Katie Rushton, are part of the Team Canada women's field-hockey national side at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. This clan is a one-stop shopping athletic mega store. Pete Rushton coaches the Island and B.C.

Premier undefeated JBAA rugby juggernaut on which is son, Eric Rush-ton, plays. Pete's nephew, Chris Trumpy, leads the top-rated UVic Vikes into the men's CIS national basketball championships this week in Halifax. And oh, by the way, Pete Rushton's own athletic background includes going to the Canada Games as a gymnast and playing for the Victoria Shamrocks in lacrosse and making the Mann Cup national final. "I guess it's typical for the Island our climate allows us to do so much in sports," said Rushton, a former Docker who now teaches P.E. at his Esquimalt Secondary alma mater.

Case in point are Andrea and Katie Rushton, who started out as Metro soccer players and were basketball standouts at Arbutus Junior High before starring at UVic in field hockey and becoming Team Canada internationals at the Melbourne Games. Stelly's-grad Erinne Willock will compete in the cycling road race and team time trial at die Melbourne Games. She comes by her love of cycling naturally dad Martin Willock and uncle Bemie I IN AN your trust in your teammates," said Kikuchi of Halifax, the only non-Calgary resident on the team. "We had good trust before, but it's even better now. "Everybody's goal here is to make it to the 2008 Olympics.

We have to qualify in 2007 and it will probably be a similar team to this." In the pool, Canadian swim team iron-man Yannick Lupien helped lead the 4-x-1 00-metre relay team to a bronze medal behind the Olympic champion South Africans and the hometown Australians. Lupien, an 1 1 -year vet, Colin Russell, Matthew Rose and anchor Brent Hayden were looking to replicate or better the silver medal the team earned last summer in Montreal at the World Aquatic Championships. Even though they finished third this time out, the foursome lowered the Canadian record to three minutes 15.74 seconds. South Africa churned to first place in 3: 14.97, while Australia was second in 3:15.54. Andrew Hurd of Oakville, added to Canada's medal count with a silver in the men's 400-metre freestyle event.

Willock are Victoria cycling legends and Olympians. "Erinne grew up being dragged around to bike races all over the Island, so she's been around the sport since she was a kid," said father Martin Willock, now president of the venerable Victoria Wheelers cycling club. For an elementary school project on the Olympics, little Erinne once tried to convince her disbelieving teacher that her dad and uncle were both Olympians. "Oh, I'm sure they are, dear," Martin Willock recalls the teacher replying. Now Erinne is poised to springboard from Melbourne as dad Martin did from the 1983 Caracas Pan-Am Games and uncle Bemie from the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games and join the Olympic family firm.

"Her goal is Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics," said proud dad Martin. So it is also for Nathan Taylor and Andrea and Katie Rushton. "Beijing is Nathan's motivation and anything he's put his mind to, he's accomplished from getting good marks in class Nathan Taylor went from high school sprint legend at G.P. Vanier in Courtenay to running on U.S. NCAA athletic scholarship for the University of Michigan Wolverines to now making the Commonwealth Games," said brother Adam Taylor.

Before picking track over hockey, Nathan Taylor played in the BCHL for the Powell River Kings while his Salmon Kings pro brother Adam won a Memorial Cup in junior with the Koote-nay Ice. "We help out at a hockey school each summer in Courtenay and Nathan's still got the wheels when he puts on the skates and helps me with tips on speed and quickness," said Adam Taylor, who has flashed plenty of that patented Taylor family swiftness this season with the Salmon Kings. "He's only 16 months older we have the same circles of friends in Courtenay, Victoria and Vancouver but I really look up to him." 23-year-old Shewfelt said. "You know, you work so long and so hard for that one goal, with a single-minded focus. For 16 years all I dreamed of was winning a gold medal and it happened." As it turned out, he surfed on the Olympic momentum for 18 months, raining but not competing and recalibrating goals towards the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

"I love gymnastics. I love training. I love representing my country," said Shewfelt, who scored first in the floor exercises and the vault, and second in the high bar in helping teammates David Kikuchi, Grant Golding and Games rookies Nathan Gafuik and Adam Wong finish ahead of Australia and England. "The thing that helped get through (thoughts of retiring) was I knew that I could come to Commonwealth and be part this awesome team and help them win old medal. We were so close in 2002." The Canadians scored best in four of events, finishing second to the Aussies rings and pommel horse.

"(The collective experience) builds By John MacKinnon CanWest News Service MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA Kyle Shewfelt admits he had thoughts of going out in a golden blaze of Olympic glory, but he loves gymnastics too completely to stick one final landing and walk away. So, 1 8 months after he won a gold medal in the floor exercises at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, the Calgary native is back on the competitive floor at the 1 8th Commonwealth Games. And the return was triumphant as he led a talented and deep Calgary-based posse of gymnasts to the team gold medal, staring down the hometown Aussies in the bargain. It was Canada's first gold medal of these Commonwealth Games and made up for a silver medal won by pretty much the same group of men in Manchester, England, where the hometown Britons edged them out for gold in 2002. It was also the fourth medal for Canada on the opening day of a Games for which the target is 100 podium finishes.

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