Alpine Skiing
Today was the final event for Alpine. The racers competed in Dual Slalom (parallel slalom); two athletes race simultaneously down side by side slalom courses.
After the first round we only had four racers advance; KT Vowk, Shane Orban, Charlie Hawes, and Liam Diamond.
Shane Orban skied hard to earn the gold ulu in junior men's. Katie Vowk added a third ulu to her collection with another silver.
And THEN our team was awarded the silver ulu for the team points category with a total of 1091 pts(3 gold, 3 silver and more) behind Alaska who had 934 points.
And that's a wrap for alpine at the 2016 AWG.
Arctic Sports
Arctic Sports - today was a huge day for Arctic Sports. The juniors are finished competition and can enjoy watching the open me do the final competition, one foot high kick starting at noon. This will cap off a great week of non stop competition from 9 am to 10 pm most days!
Badminton
For the final match of the competition Lukas and Marek represented the Yukon well. The game started very strong for our team who lead at the interval in the first set but was unfortunately outpaced 14-21. The second set saw an equally good start with Marek making some wonderful net shots and Lukas playing aggressively from the back. However, Nunavut Sappa Cookie used his experience from the last two Arctics to pull his team ahead and to a win of 16-21. The rest of the weekend we will be out supporting our fellow athletes!
Basketball
On Thursday, Yukon Boys played their semi-final game against a steadily improving Alaskan squad. After a fairly close first quarter, Yukon couldn't find the basket as Alaska focused squarely on denying Yukon star guard RJ Siosan. Yukon found a better rhythm in the second half but could not make up the halftime defect, losing 94 to 68.
Ian New scored 19 points, Dave Mindanao had another strong game scoring 16 and Josh Tobias scored 12.
Friday sees the Yukon boys compete for the bronze ulu at AHL at 10:00am against Nunavut. They feel they haven't played their best game yet and are looking to close out the tournament strong.
The girls basketball team lost a heartbreaker to NWT today in the 2 vs 3 semi final. It was a hard fought, physical game, which saw all 10 players see the floor.
They are gathering their strategy to face Nunavut in the bronze medal final on Friday at 8:00 a.m. The girls will rest up, reunite and come out hard in the morning to finish the 2016 AWGs strong.
Biathlon - Ski/Snowshoe
There were windy snowy conditions for both ski and snowshoe biathlon. The trails were very slow due to the fresh snow and the targets hard to see through blowing snow, but visible enough for snowshoe biathlete Marika Kitchen to clean her target twice! In Biathlon a clean target is 5 hits out of a possible 5 targets, so 5/5. Bruce Wilson and Bronwyn Goodwin also cleaned in the race! Gold ulus went to Snowshoe biathletes Aidan Adel and Bruce Wilson. A silver ulu went to Maria Peters and bronze ulus went to Ski biathletes Liam Adel and Dana Sellars and Snowshoe biathlete Marika Kitchen. Alaskan juvenile biathlete, Eloise Darrow, scooped up broken pole bit for our Dana while both were racing against each other. A Fair Play pin went to Eloise after the race.
The Yukon biathletes are gradually learning the words to the Star Spangled Banner!
Tomorrow are the relay races and the excitement is really high. 10:00m for the Ski Biathlon relay and 2:00 pm for Snowshoe Biathlon relay.
Cross Country Skiing
Mother nature was laughing again this morning as we had blizzard conditions for our relay races but cross country skiers were ready to face the challenge again.
Yukon skiers brought in gold ulus in Junior female (Hannah Deuling, Natalie Hynes & Alexis Gee), silver ulus in Junior males (Simon Cash, Michael Kischuk & Pelly Vincent-Braun), bronze ulus for Juvenile females (Hannah Jirousek, Sofia Bond & Regan Fuerstner) and a silver ulu for our Midget males (Sasha Masson, Derek Deuling & Ben Puskas). Well done for 'facing the storm' !!
Tomorrow is our last race already. We will have Sprints starting at 10:00am. Yukon Do It!
Culture Contingent
Culture performed in the second gala and tomorrow will visit the theatre and prepare for closing ceremony.
Dene Games
Dene Games had a quieter day after the gold rush that happened yesterday. The last day of competition will be the pole push starting at 9:00am at USK.
Futsal
Today was a very busy day at Futsal and semi finals and final games.
Semi final results:
Juvenile girls vs Greenland 1-4, Leah scored for Team Yukon
Juvenile boys vs Alaska 8-9, ended in an exciting shootout. Great job in net Callum!
Intermediate girls vs NWT 3-1, goals by Thea, Mikaela (2). Moving on to gold medal match.
Junior girls vs Alaska 1-2, goal by Bryn.
Junior boys vs Alaska 1-3, goal by Ewan Halliday.
Final results:
Juvenile girls vs N. Alberta 0-3, 4th place finish.
Juvenile boys vs NWT 2-0 - Bronze medal!
Friday events:
Junior girls vs NWT - Bronze medal match
Junior boys vs NWT - Bronze medal match
Intermediate girls vs Sampi - Gold medal match
Medal ceremony at 4 pm, come cheer us on!
Snowboarding
Due to strong winds and blowing snow, the boarder cross was postponed until tomorrow. Officials hope that the weather cooperates and our boarders are looking forward to one more day of competition.
Snowshoe
The Snowshoe competition wrapped up today with stormy white out conditions.
Yukon snowshoers Maya Cairns-Locke and Jack Amos both won 3rd in the juvenile 5 km races.
Joe Parker also won 3rd in the junior boys 10 km race.
Medals were given out for yesterday's sprint competitions as well. Breda McIntyre won bronze for the juvenile girls combined sprints. Jack Amos won silver for the juvenile boys. Joe Parker won bronze for the junior boys.
All the snowshoers should be proud with finishing their races today in such nasty weather. They will look forward to a well deserved day off on Friday.
Table Tennis
Thursday wrapped up the 2016 AWG Table Tennis competition. The morning started with the semi finals with the Yukon being represented in 6 of the semi final matches. In the afternoon Sam Crocker lost to one of Alaska's strongest players, Emily Gaw lost 3-2 against Nunavut, Arcel Siosan lost 3-2 to Nunavut, Grace-Anne Janssen lost 3-2 to Nunavik, Emily and Arcel lost 3-1 in mixed doubles, all in the bronze medal matches. In Junior women's doubles Ashley and Grace-Anne won the bronze in an exciting 3-2 win against North Alberta.
The surprise bronze medal in the team event went to Arcel, Zack, Emily and Kate in the juvenile category. Highlights of the day were Grace Anne Janssen's fair play medal for her high spirit and good sportsmanship and Emily Gaw with the only Yukon win in a game over the mighty Greenland team. The Greenland team won all gold and silver medals they were eligible for.
Volleyball
The Yukon Male Volleyball Team played Alaska in the semifinals this morning taking the match 3-1 (26-22 , 25-19, 22-25 & 25-15). There were some great blocks and hits on the front line from Anshil Kumar, Parker Olson with several 51s, and Adrian Robinson slipping the ball to the block! There was great setting from Daniel"Soft Hands" Moses as he set up Luka Ban Randan and Robert Smallwood with a wide variety of sets!
Luka took the worst part of two Alaska player's collision and injured his knee in the final set.
The Yukon Male Volleyball Team faced Northern Alberta in the Gold medal game this evening. Both teams came out strong in the first set. Each team exchanged tough hits and blocks with Peter Jacob and Anshil Kumar coming up with key points. Alberta took the first set 25-23.
The second set saw Luka Van Randen and Parker Olson land some key 51s. Adrian Robinson also had some nice hits from Daniel Moses' variety of sets!
Alberta had some powerful hitters as well and took the set 25-18.
Alberta dominated the third set 25-13 to sweep the match and claim the gold medal!!
Wrestling
The Yukon boys played hard in all their matches, under the leadership of Coach D'Arcy Hill. They became crowd pleasers, which was evident from the support from NWT, Alaska and Greenland supporters. Great work boys!
Today was our final day of wrestling with Inuit Wrestling being the discipline of the day.
The highlight of the day being all 5 yukon wrestlers who competed won a medal.
Silver ulus went to Emiko Teramura 55 kg, Hannah King 71 kg
Bronze ulus went to Shayne Melanson 82 kg, Jared Peterson 68 kg, Kestrel Martin 65 kg
