The Arctic Winter Games are underway this week in Hay River and Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, and after March 20, Team Yukon is at the top of the standings.
Yukon currently has 50 ulus — seven more than second-place Northwest Territories — and, with 16 gold ulus, is tied for the most with Yamal.
The short track speedskating competition was the only sport to start on day one, and ulus have been awarded for the 1,000-metre individual races and the 500-metre races.
In the juvenile male 1,000-metre, Lucas Taggart-Cox won gold and Anders John-Eric Petersson won silver. Caius Taggart-Cox just missed the podium in fourth.
In the juvenile female 1,000-metre, Lisa Megan Freeman was second and Micah Taggart-Cox was third in the junior male 1,000-metre.
In the 500-metre races, Micah Taggart-Cox won gold in the junior male category, Freeman won bronze in the juvenile female category and Lucas Taggart-Cox and Petersson finished first and third in the juvenile male race.
Bianca Berko-Malvasio had a strong start to the competition in arctic sports.
Berko-Malvasio won gold in the kneel jump, arm pull, two foot high kick and triple jump in the junior female category.
Kalina Privett Morrison won silver in the junior female kneel jump and Emily King won bronze in the junior female arm pull, silver in the two foot high kick and bronze in the triple jump.
Junior male Lou Samson won bronze in the two foot high kick and the kneel jump.
Matt Jacobson won silver in the one hand reach.
Ski biathlon started with the five-kilometre juvenile and 7.5-kilometre junior races.
In the juvenile female race, Veronica Porter won gold.
Aidan Hupé finished third in the junior male race and Bronwyn Goodwin-James won gold in the junior female race.
In the four-kilometre juvenile female sprint, Ava Irving-Staley finished third and Porter was fourth.
In the snowshoe biathlon, Bruce Porter won bronze in the three-kilometre juvenile male race and Isla Hupé finished fourth in the juvenile female race.
Isla Hupé won a bronze in the two-kilometre sprint as did Isaac O’Brien in the juvenile male race.
Cross-country skiing started at the games with a five-kilometre interval start classic race on March 19.
In the junior female category, Amanda Thomson and Hannah Jirousek finished second and third.
Sonjaa Schmidt won the juvenile female race and Dahlia Lapointe finished fourth.
Kate Mason and Maude Molgat finished second and third in the midget female race.
On the male side, Derek Deuling won the juvenile race with Victor Thibeault in second and Sasha Masson in fourth.
Next up was mass start free races.
In the 3.75-kilometre midget female category, Mason won silver.
Schdmit and Lapointe finished second and fourth in the 7.5-kilometre juvenile female race and Deuling, Masson and Thibeault finished one, two, three in the juvenile male race.
Thomson and Jirousek won gold and silver in the 10-kilometre junior female race.
Nick Schmidt won silver in the junior male race.
In Dene Games action, Doronn Fox won silver in the open male stick pull and gold in the open male snow snake.
Gavin Winter-Sinnott won silver in the junior male snow snake and Trina Pauls finished fourth in the juvenile female snow snake.
Figure skating short programs were on March 19 and Bronwyn Hays won a bronze in the ladies 2 category.
In ladies 3, Ali Russell and Jamie Nickel finished fourth and fifth.
Ben Machtans won gold and Syth Charchun finished fourth in the rail jam junior male snowboarding event.
In the juvenile female category, Riley Boland won bronze.
Boland won another bronze in the juvenile female banked slalom.
As far as snowshoeing went, Naoise Dempsey won bronze in the 2.5-kilometre juvenile male race and Jack Amos and Darby McIntrye won gold and silver in the five-kilometre junior male race.
Team Yukon also took part in the wrestling team competition where they finished fourth after going 1-3 in their matchups.
Yukoners are also competing in table tennis, basketball, volleyball, hockey, curling, futsal and badminton, but no ulus have been awarded yet.
Contact John Hopkins-Hill at john.hopkinshill@yukon-news.com
