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More gold in snowboarding as team sports head to playoffs at Arctic Winter Games

Yukon continued to lead the ulu count
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The Team Yukon junior male curlers lost to the Northwest Territories in the semifinal on March 22. (Stephen Anderson-Lindsay/Team Yukon)

The Arctic Winter games continue this week in Hay River and Forth Smith, Northwest Territories, and Team Yukon won more ulus on March 21.

Overall, Team Yukon is narrowly ahead in the standings as of 2 p.m. on March 22 with 59 ulus. Yamal is second with 55 and Northwest Territories is third with 53.

The Dene Games team was consistent in hand games as all four divisions were on the podium. The junior female, juvenile female and open male teams all won silver and the junior males won bronze.

In the Alaskan high kick, junior female arctic sports athletes Kate Koepke and Emily King finished fourth and fifth.

Figure skating continued with the free skate on March 21.

Anika Kramer finished fourth in the ladies 1 category, Bronwyn Hays was sixth in ladies 2, and Ali Russell and Jamie Nickel were fifth and sixth in ladies 3.

Those results and the short program results from March 19 mean that Team Yukon narrowly missed out on the podium for the combined event.

In their respective categories, Anika Kramer was fifth, Bronwyn Hays was fifth, Ali Russell was fifth and Jamie Nickel was sixth.

Gymnastics kicked off with the team competition and Team Yukon won bronze. Yukon gymnasts are back in action March 23 for the individual events.

Snowboarding big air saw four Yukoners on the podium. In the junior male category, Ben Machtans won gold and Syth Charchun won bronze. Riley Boland won bronze in juvenile female and Lewis Bunce won bronze in juvenile male.

In showshoeing, Team Yukon finished fourth in the junior mix 4x400-metre relay and fifth in the juvenile iteration.

In junior female curling, Team Yukon lost to Nunavut 13-3 in the bronze medal game on March 22. The junior male team lost to the Northwest Territories 8-6 in the semifinal.

Badminton started with singles competition on March 19 and 20.

After two days, Team Yukon’s junior athletes — Abby Cuenza, Nora Vincent-Braun, Lukas Kobler and Carl Knickle — all have 2-3 records in their pools.

Juvenile females Gabrielle Bélanger and Ainslie Spence are both 1-4 in their pools, as is juvenile male Austin Au. Anton Menzel is 2-3 in his pool.

Hockey round robins finished on March 21 and two out of three Yukon teams moved on to semifinal games.

The junior female team finished fourth in the round robin with one win, one tie and two losses — enough to earn a sport in the semifinals against Alaska.

Team Yukon’s midget male side went 0-3 in the round robin but still had a chance to play for gold with a matchup against Nunavut in the semifinal.

The bantam male side was the odd team out, finishing fifth in the round robin.

The Arctic Winter Games come to an end on March 24.

Contact John Hopkins-Hill at john.hopkinshill@yukon-news.com