The Yukon Youth Climbing Team reached an all-time high recently in Vancouver.
The team won three medals, including its first-ever gold, at the Tour de Bloc junior bouldering competition at the Hive Bouldering Gym the weekend of Feb. 15-16.
“It was a great experience for the seven (Yukoners),” said team coach Alain Dallaire. “For five of them it was their first experience at a different level climbing competition. The Tour de Bloc is a national level competition.
“I brought a bunch of climbers who next year I can hopefully bring to two or three of those ones. It was a pretty successful trip.”
Yukon’s Amaya Cherian-Hall delivered her team’s first gold medal at the competition that saw 130 climbers take part.
She placed first in the female youth junior.
“She was off before Christmas doing a semester at sea and was off sailing around the world with the program, and she just came back the second semester,” said Dallaire. “That’s a really good result for her. She did quite well.”
Cherian-Hall competed at the Tour de Bloc last year, finishing middle of the pack. She was the overall winner of a Yukon climbing event last year.
The Yukon team also came away with a silver and bronze. Fin Matrishon placed second in the male youth B division and Cassie Wright placed third in female youth A division. Teammate Gentianne Graham was close behind Wright in fourth.
Other Yukon results include Calden Hoefs and Tynan Leong-Best coming fourth and fifth, respectively, in youth junior male, and Henry Beairsto sixth in the male youth A division.
Vancouver wasn’t the first successful trip for the Yukon Youth Climbing Team this season. They took three top-five finishes at the Rock Dump Climbing Competition in Juneau, Alaska, last November. In those top-five finishes, Wright took third place in the open women division.
Climb Yukon will host the Yukon Open bouldering championships next Wednesday at 6-9 p.m. at F.H. Collins Secondary.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com