Yukon’s snowshoe team will be going into the Arctic Winter Games this March in Whitehorse with 11 medals already under their belt.
All three junior-level team members, selected at tryouts on Saturday at F.H. Collins Secondary School and Sunday at the Mount McIntyre Recreation Centre, have competed and won ulus (Arctic Games medals) at previous Arctic Games.
“I think it’s going to be great,” said junior competitor Logan Roots. “I have yet to get a medal in a relay and I’m looking at the team and I think we’re going to do pretty well. So I’m pretty excited for that.
“It’s good to have the juveniles coming out now because they’re going to be pretty quick and when they get to the next Arctics they are going to do really well - if they stick with it.”
Roots, who is the most veteran of the squad, won three golds at the 2008 Games as a juvenile, and two silvers and a gold as a junior at the 2010 Games in Grande Prairie, Alta. He also won a bronze in cross-country skiing in the 2006 Games and has represented the territory in athletics at the 2009 Canada Summer Games and this past summer at the Western Canada Summer Games.
Junior teammate Aiden Bradley, who also represented the Yukon on the track at the Western Canada Summer Games, won a bronze in the 2.5-kilometre and a gold in the juvenile 4x400-metre relay at the 2010 Arctic Games.
The third junior on the team is Sara Burke-Forsythe, a three-time medalist at the 2010 Games, winning two silver and a gold, plus an additional gold in the 4x400-metre relay event.
Competing on behalf of the Yukon in the juvenile division are newcomers Sam Boner, Tomas Tokic and Kate Londer.
“Kate is the most junior, she’s only been coming out since September,” said Yukon head coach Don White. “But I’m been working with (the juniors) for years.”
The team is currently training four times a week with three speed sessions on weekday nights at Mount McIntyre and longer-distance runs at various locations on Sundays.
Though the trials are done, the team is missing two females, short one junior and one juvenile, “So I’m hoping I can pick-up two people,” said White. “It’s just a matter of contacting me and coming out to the training sessions.”
If interested in trying out for the squad, contact White at 333-9202 or email him at don.white@live.ca.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com