In the snowboard-centric weekend at Mount Sima that also featured the Lost in Paradise Para Snowboard World Cup, the Snowboard Yukon Championships were held March 29-31 with banked slalom and snowboardcross events.
It was a packed field of 49 for the banked slalom contests, as local boarders competed against the likes of Paralympians, Olympians and X Games competitors, according to event organizers.
Graham Watanabe, an American who made a 2006 Winter Olympics appearance in snowboardcross, won the open banked slalom category, followed by British para snowboarder Karel van Goor and American Paralympian Noah Elliott.
Poppy Spiers Leung and Nellie TM Borlase, ages 10 and 7, rounded out the U-10 female competition roster, and Eva Benkert was the sole 11- or 12-year-old female.
The podium for the 11-12 males was Leon TM Borlase, who came in first, followed by Dallen Dubois and Luca Kwan-Teau.
Seamus MacDonald, 13, won the 13-14 male event, followed by Leo Spiers Leung and Marcus Fred.
On top of the 15-17 female category was Aven Sutton.
Second place went to Ginger MacDonald and Courtney Stevens picked up third.
Connor Boland had the fastest run of the 15-17 males, with the podium rounded out by Eli Wolsky and Tycho Roy-Gelinas.
The fastest finishers in the “RAD” category were Dominic Smith, a mere 10th of a second ahead of Angeline Sullivan. Ian Parker put up a run good for third place.
Another event over the weekend had 25 local athletes competing in the Icycle Sports Snowboard Cross.
Poppy Spiers Leung also won the U-10 female snowboardcross, followed by Aurora Mantyka-Pringle and River Mantyka-Pringle.
The 11-12 male podium was Hayden MacDonald, Riley Lane and Leon TM Borlase.
Seamus MacDonald came first, and Marcus Fred second in the 13-14 male category. They were the only competitors in the category.
Aven Sutton, Ginger MacDonald and Courtney Stevens were the top three among the 15-17 females.
In the 15-17 males, Tycho Roy-Gelinas, Connor Boland and Eli Wolsky were first, second and third.
The top three in the open snowboardcross were Pelly Vincent Braun, Gabriel Rivest and Guillaume Nielsen.
The podium for the “RAD” riders was Ian Parker, Chris Boland and Angeline Sullivan.
The event had something for all ages, as the youngest riders were seven years old, and the oldest were in their 50s.
As with other Snowboard Yukon events, organizers expressed gratitude for the volunteers, local sponsors and partnerships that allowed the weekend to go off.
The Landed Bakehouse slopestyle competition, which had been set for Sunday, was postponed a week due to high winds. It is now set to go off on Saturday, April 6.
Contact Jim Elliot at jim.elliot@yukon-news.com