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As with the Summer Olympics or Commonwealth Games, narrowing Island highlights at past Pan Am Games to a mere top-10 list is a daunting task and many have to be left out. But goes 鈥� the top-10 moments provided by Island athletes at the Pan Am Games:
1. It was the cold heard around the world when Victoria rowing legend Silken Laumann, winner of two gold medals at the 1995 Pan Am Games, took the wrong kind of Benadryl medication in Argentina. The resulting test was a shocker, but it was an honest mistake and Laumann was back the following year to win Olympic silver in the single sculls at Atlanta.
2. Nobody had heard of the skinny triathlete from Victoria who slipped in for the bronze medal at the 1999 Pan Am Games in Winnipeg. But one year later in Sydney, everybody would know Simon Whitfield.
3. Always in Whitfield鈥檚 shadow, Brent McMahon of Victoria finally emerged to win silver at the 2007 Pan Am Games in Rio and bronze at the 2011 Games in Guadalajara.
4. It was all going to plan when the marvellously powerful Phil Olsen of Nanaimo won javelin gold at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton and 1999 Pan Am Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. But the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics robbed the Islander of his golden chance on the greatest stage of all.
5. From Reg Underwood, Gord Fadden and Dennis Eckert to Rob Guenter, Randy Benn and Darrell Clarkson, Island players were dominant on every one of sa国际传媒鈥檚 seven consecutive Pan Am Games gold medals in men鈥檚 softball from Puerto Rico in 1979 to Santo Domingo in 2003.
6. The late Billy Foster of Victoria became the first Canadian to race in the Indianapolis 500 in 1965. More than two decades later, also at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where the opening ceremonies were held, Olympian and Victoria field-hockey great Nancy Mollenhauer (nee Charlton) was Canadian flagbearer during the 1987 Pan Am Games.
7. The dogged and devoted Bruce Deacon of Victoria ran the marathon in two Olympics and won silver at the 2003 Pan Am Games in Santo Domingo.
8. Off road, the Pan Am Games track has also proven bountiful for Island runners and field athletes. How do you choose between Saanichton hammer thrower Harold Willers鈥� silver at Caracas in 1983, Mount Douglas-grad Penny May鈥檚 silver in pentathlon and bronze in the high hurdles at Cali in 1971 or Oak Bay-grad Bob McLaren鈥檚 400-metre hurdles bronze and 4x400 relay silver at Winnipeg in 1967? We鈥檒l go in eighth spot with Victoria runner Joyce Yakubowich鈥檚 golds in the 400 metres and 4x400 and silver in the 4x100.
9. The Canadian women鈥檚 national basketball team of the 1960s was built around the superb talents of Mary Coutts, who came from the rather unlikely hoops hotbed of Sooke, and it helped sa国际传媒 win home-Games bronze at Winnipeg in 1967.
10. Kai Langerfeld from Parksville is being described as sa国际传媒鈥檚 Next One in rowing. He warmed up for that billing with two silver medals at the 2011 Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.
