BC Sports Hall of Fame Inducts Class of 2026
Vancouver, B.C. – The BC Sports Hall of Fame inducted its Class of 2026 during a reception at the Hall yesterday. Joining the honoured member ranks was five athletes, three builder-coaches, one team, one pioneer, one media member and the winner of the prestigious W.A.C. Bennett Award.
The 2026 Induction Class welcomed into the Hall of Champions includes:
Athletes
Doug Brown – Football
Silvana Burtini – Soccer
Justin Kripps – Bobsleigh
Georgia Simmerling – Cycling/Skiing
Les Wilson – Soccer
Builders-Coaches
Ossie Chavarria – Baseball
Jim Clive – Beach Volleyball
Barb Hart Harris – Field Hockey
Team
2006 Vancouver Whitecaps Women’s Soccer
Team Members: Paige Adams, Dave Adolph (athletic therapist), Amber Allen, Sasha Andrews, Amy Apps, Sian Bagshawe, Taryne Boudreau, Kirsteen Buchan, Candace Chapman, Jaclyn Dunnet, Martina Franko, Natalie Groenewoud, Carey Gustafson, Randee Hermus, Eden Hingwing, Natalie Hirayama, Selenia Iacchelli, Kaylyn Kyle, Kara Lang, Ciara McCormack, Ashley McGhee, Erin McLeod, Amelie Mercier, Tiffany Milbrett, Andrea Neil (captain & assistant coach), Jan Peace (team doctor), Sari Raber, Erin Ramsay, Jodi Ann Robinson, Lindsay Rohla, Pat Rohla (assistant coach), Sophie Schmidt, Desiree Scott, Steve Simonson (assistant coach), Christine Sinclair, Rheanne Sleiman, Stephanie Smith, Katie Thorlakson, Brittany Timko, Diane Voice (manager), Stephanie Weston, Darren Woloshen (goalkeeper coach), Emily Zurrer.
Pioneer
Dr. Bruce Forster – Sports Medicine
Media
John McKeachie
W.A.C. Bennett Award
John Mills
Induction into the BC Sports Hall of Fame is the highest sporting honour in British Columbia, celebrating the extraordinary individuals and moments that make up the fabric of B.C.’s diverse sport history.
Since 1966, the BC Sports Hall of Fame has now inducted 473 individuals and 72 teams to its Hall of Champions, ensuring their legacies will continue to inspire future generations.
Justin Kripps – Bobsleigh
Justin Kripps readily admits that by the age of 18 his knowledge of bobsleigh essentially amounted to the movie Cool Runnings.
That script was flipped in 2005 when Bobsleigh Canada coach Matt Hindle spotted Justin sprinting to victory in a 100m race at the BC junior provincial track and field championships. A team of Hollywood’s best scriptwriters couldn’t have dreamt up what was to come next. Justin merely went on to become one of the world’s best bobsleigh athletes and one of Canada’s most decorated over 16 years on the Canadian national team from 2006-22.
Justin was born in Na’alehu, Hawaii before the Kripps family moved to Cambodia where Justin’s dad performed aid work for UNICEF. They later settled in Summerland where Justin grew up. Caught skateboarding at MacDonald Elementary’s bus stop, his PE teacher Mr. Jones threatened to confiscate his skateboard unless Justin completed 50 pushups and turned out for the track and field team. Inspired by Donovan Bailey’s 1996 Olympic gold medal win - and wanting his treasured skateboard back - it was an easy decision and unknowingly sent Justin down the path towards his own Olympic gold medal.
At Summerland Secondary, Justin played every sport available but track remained his focus. Always fast, the 100m was his best event (with a PB of 10.79 sec). He claimed three gold medals in sprint events at the 2002 BC Summer Games and went to SFU on a track scholarship. For two years he sprinted on the university’s track team when bobsleigh found him.
After performing well in initial testing on Calgary’s bobsleigh track, Justin moved there to train allowing himself one year to give this new sport a fair shot. If it didn’t work out, he planned to return to SFU. While placed on one of Bobsleigh Canada’s development teams, he quickly emerged as a talented brakeman alongside pilot Lyndon Rush and was racing overseas on the Europa Tour within a few months. After one season he was promoted to Canada’s top World Cup team piloted by the legendary Pierre Lueders, who became a mentor to Justin. There was no going back after that.
Justin made his Olympic debut at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, a surreal experience for him competing in his home province in a sport he barely knew existed just five years earlier. A member of Lueders’ four-man team, they finished fifth. The following season Justin moved into the driver’s seat himself and began learning from one of the best in the recently retired Lueders.
Justin moved up the ranks rapidly as a driver and at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi he finished fourth in the two-man event. Four years later at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, he and brakeman Alex Kopacz electrified the nation with Olympic gold in the two-man event after finishing in a rare tie with the Germans, both timed in a combined four-run total of 3:16.86. Justin also piloted Canada’s top four-man sled featuring Kopacz, Jesse Lumsden, and Oluseyi Smith to a solid sixth place finish.
At his fourth Winter Olympics in 2022 in Beijing, Justin made history once again. With teammates Cam Stones, Ryan Sommer, and Ben Coakwell, Justin piloted his team to a bronze medal less than a second behind the powerful German crews. With that, Justin became the first and only Canadian pilot to win Olympic medals in both the two and four-man bobsleigh events.
Justin’s results on the World Cup circuit are equally impressive, accumulating 44 career IBSF World Cup medals in Tour events (seven gold, 14 silver, 23 bronze). He won two Crystal Globes during his career as overall season champion while also claiming eight other runner-up Crystal Globes finishing second and third overall on the World Cup Tour four times each. In addition, he won five career IBSF World Championship medals: two silvers (2017 Konigssee and 2019 Whistler in two-man) and three bronzes (2012 Lake Placid and 2015 Winterberg in mixed team, and 2019 Whistler in four-man).
Justin retired following the 2022 Olympics and has since devoted himself to coaching Canada’s next generation of bobsleigh athletes on the men’s and women’s national team including at the recent 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina.