Skip to content

Speedy duo repeat and three peat at Yukon Cup

Whitehorse's Charlie Hawes and Katie Vowk were once again the fastest down the mountain over the weekend.
p35ski1

Whitehorse’s Charlie Hawes and Katie Vowk were once again the fastest down the mountain over the weekend.

The two under-16 alpine skiers had the fastest combined times over two days of racing to win overall titles at the Yukon Cup at Mount Maichen in Watson Lake.

It was Hawes’ third in a row and Vowk’s second in a row winning.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Hawes fell in one of his two giant slalom runs and Vowk was disqualified in her first slalom run.

“It was a fun race,” said Hawes. “In the first run, when I fell, I think I was going a little bit too fast and it caught me off guard on a couple of turns. In the afternoon it got really hot and the snow got very slow, so it as a lot more difficult in the afternoon.”

“I was kind of unsure because of my disqualification (in my first run), so I was surprised to hear it still worked out,” said Vowk. “(On the second run) I took it a little bit easier - the course was a little rutted up, so I had to take it slow anyways. But when I got to the end I was pretty sure I was going to make it and went all out.”

Hawes and Vowk squeezed out wins - determined by the lowest combined time from the best run Saturday and best run Sunday - by just a few seconds ahead of teammates.

Hawes produced a combined time of 1:14.13, just 1.66 seconds ahead of Shane Orban. Vowk posted a combined time of 1:17.64, just 13.87 seconds up from Greta Gladwin.

Vowk, Hawes and Orban all won gold medals at the Arctic Winter Games last month in Greenland. The team, which included Gladwin, also took the silver in the team competition.

Though spring weather is melting the snow, the season isn’t quite done yet for the Yukon Alpine Ski Team. They will compete at the Fidelity Investments U16 Alberta Provincial Finals next week at Sunshine in Banff, Alta.

“I’m pretty excited about Sunshine. It’s definitely the higher level skiers we’re going to be competing with there,” said Vowk. “So I’m a little bit worried about it, but I think when I get to the race I’ll be a little more confident to ski.”

A total of 54 skiers competed at this year’s Yukon Cup, which was held in Watson Lake a second year in a row.

Contact Tom Patrick at

tomp@yukon-news.com

Top 10 results

(combined times)

Women

1st Katie Vowk (U16) - 1:17.64

2nd Greta Gladwin (U12) - 1:31.31

3rd Mollie Fraser (U14) - 1:33.25

4th Anna Potvin (U12) - 1:34.04

5th Rosa Martens-Derepentigny (U14) - 1:35.13

6th Anna Lund (U16) - 1:36.86

7th Tanya Ordish (master) - 1:38.59

8th Jordan Minifie (U10) - 1:39.46

9th Adelle Anderson (U12) - 1:39.82

10th Felicity Vangel (U16) - 1:39.84

Male

1st Charlie Hawes (U16) - 1:14.13

2nd Shane Orban (U16) - 1:15.79

3rd John Wright (master) -1:22.31

4th Wesley Vangel (U14) - 1:24.07

5th Manas Toews (U16) - 1:24.46

6th Clayton Chapman (U12) - 1:24.89

7th Noah Wright (U14) - 1:25.16

8th Lyle Dinn (master) - 1:25.58

9th Naoise Dempsey (U14) - 1:27.02

10th Paul MacDonald (master) - 1:27.49