Two Yukon athletes will be competing in the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon, South Korea.
Cross-country skier Minty Bradford, 15, and biathlete Cheyenne Tirschmann, 16, will be among the Canadian athletes at the games.
The competition will run from Jan. 19 to Feb. 1 and is the world’s largest multi-sport event for high-performance young athletes aged 15 to 18, featuring 1,900 athletes, according to a Dec. 21 statement by Nordiq Canada, the governing body of cross-country and para-nordic skiing in the country,.
Bradford is one of the four cross-country skiers who will represent Team Canada at the winter competition.
The other three athletes joining Bradford are Leanne Gartner from Canmore, Alta., Cedric Martel from Thunder Bay, Ont. and Eamon Wilson from Burnaby, British Columbia.
Bradford said she is excited to race and have fun. She said she participated in trials in Canmore, Alta., from Dec. 9 to 10, where she competed in two races. The first race was a skate sprint, where she came second, while the other race was a classic long-distance event where she crossed the finish line first. More than 40 athletes from across Canada turned up at the trials.
“I’ve been training since May for the race season, and when I found out that I qualified, it kind of changed my training focus,” she said.
The Nordiq Canada statement said the four athletes were selected based on their performances in Canmore.
“We are excited by the selection of these four talented young athletes who will proudly represent Canada at the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games,” Julie Beaulieu, Nordiq Canada’s sport development director, said in the statement.
She said the games will expose them to an “international multi-sport competition environment while allowing them to compete against the best in the world, which will undoubtedly contribute to their long-term development.”
This is Bradford’s first international event for Canada.
She told the News she plans to try her best in the races and see what happens. She said she will be training in Whitehorse with the Yukon ski team before leaving to join her colleagues for the trip to South Korea.
Tirschmann said she is super excited for her first international biathlon experience.
“I competed at the 2023 Canada Winter Games in P.E.I. And those have been my only real big biathlon races because I’ve mainly been racing cross-country for my life, and I’ve raced cross-country basically all over Canada.”
On her expectations at the competition, she said she is “just going to try my best and have fun representing Canada and to race different countries.”
Lisa Weagle, Team Canada’s chef de mission, said in a statement that most athletes will be competing outside Canadian borders for the first time.
“Congratulations on being named to the team, and know that Canada will be behind you as you compete with pride in Gangwon.”
Next year’s competition will be the fourth edition of the Winter Youth Olympic Games and the first time it is happening in Asia.
Contact Patrick Egwu at patrick.egwu@yukon-news.com