newsminer.com

YELLOWKNIFE, YUKON — Hunter Brown had to borrow wooden snowshoes, then come from behind to win his five-kilometer race.

Leah Francis of Juneau, Alaska’s high school cross country running champion, proved that a change in footwear hardly slows her down. And a competitor from Alberta North collapsed just feet from the finish line and had to crawl the rest of the way.

Such was the drama at the 20th Arctic Winter Games snowshoe races on Saturday at the Yellowknife Golf Club, where Alaska raked in six of 12 medals.

The first challenge came when several sets of snowshoes measured slightly too narrow, and Alaska had to scramble, borrowing some from Alberta North shortly before the races began.

“They really helped me out,” said Brown, who promptly sped in the unfamiliar snowshoes — secured to low-cut mukluks with lamp wick — in 22 minutes, 31 seconds, a time 46 seconds faster than the runner-up.

Jeff Hastie of Alberta was set to finish third in that race until, having pushed himself too hard, he went down agonizingly close to the finish line. After several minutes, and with the coaxing of team officials, he crawled over the finish line. Though an ambulance brought him to the hospital, Alberta officials reported that Hastie is fine and will compete in sprints today.

The unflappable Francis, meanwhile, shuffled to her win in 24:41, more than a minute faster than Tatiana Somova of Yamal, Russia. Heidi Doner of Palmer took the bronze.

A sport-by-sport summary of the other events on Tuesday:

Snowboarding — At the Bristol Pit, where a ski hill was built on a gravel pit by hauling hundreds of loads of snow there, MacKenzie “Sparky” Kesler of Anchorage won the juvenile female banked slalom with a run of 13.61 seconds. Kyle Gray of Anchorage won the juvenile male race on his third and final run in 11.86 seconds.

Biathlon — Jasmine Neeno of Anchorage won in the 6K after a Yamal competitor who had been faster was disqualified for a violation of gun safety standards.

Snowshoe biathlon — Nick Hajdukovich of Fairbanks, a newcomer to the sport, took gold by 40 seconds after having the fewest shooting misses. Ruby Campbell of Tanana also won a gold.

Cross country skiing — Alaska set out to put a fiasco from Monday behind them (several skiers began late because of a confusing start list), and succeeded by winning five medals in the sprint races. Four of those came in the midget divisions, where boys and girls teams each went 2-3-4-5 in each race.

Speedskating — Abby Gaum of Eagle River won the only medal, a silver in the 500 meters.

Curling — The boys took a tough 9-8 loss to Northwest Territories, giving up the winning point in the 10th end after scoring two to tie it in the ninth. The girls also dropped an 8-5 decision to Yukon.

Hockey — Alaska’s girls team broke open a tie game against Nunavut with two goals late in the second period. Then the floodgates opened as it rolled to a 10-2 victory behind hat tricks from Kayla Weber of Fairbanks and Zoe Hickel of Anchorage.

The midget male team defeated Nunavut 2-0 and the Bantam males crushed Nunavut 17-0 as Aaron McInnis of Anchorage poured in six goals.

Figure skating — The team earned four medals in its first day of competition, including silvers from Miriam Herz of Eagle River, Xinghua Turner of Eagle River and Celina Farmer of Anchorage.

Gymnastics — Alaska finished second in the team competition to Alberta North, posting the top score in the vault and parallel bars.

Volleyball — The girls improved to 6-0 without losing a single game. The boys won their first match, defeating NWT 25-12, 25-21 to avenge a loss to them from Monday.

Basketball — The boys lost to Nunavut 79-66 while the girls topped Nunavut 60-34 behind 16 points from Fairbanks’ Kim Wilson, a late addition to the team.

Indoor soccer — The five soccer teams combined for a record of 5-2, highlighted by a pair of wins from the juvenile female and intermediate female squads.

Wrestling — The coed squad won gold in the team competition by completing its round-robin dual meets with a 45-15 win over Alberta.

Table tennis — Edward Hurtte of Juneau and Brant Bennett of Eagle River won bronze in doubles by virtue of a come-from-behind win over Nunavut.

Badminton — Julia Sherman of Fairbanks, who just started playing badminton last September, won the team’s first juvenile female match since at least 1990, according to coach Laura Nutter.

“Maybe someone might have won a game, but not a match,” Nutter said.

Dene Games — Brianna Goins of Ninilchik won gold in the snowsnake competition while Marjorie Tahbone of Fairbanks and Aurora Warrior of Sitka took bronze.

Arctic Sports — Alaska took four medals in the popular two-foot high kick competition at the Yellowknife Community Arena, including gold from Erica Meckel of Fairbanks with a personal-best kick of 5 feet, 10 inches. For a jump to count, contestants must leap off two feet, keep them together, hit a miniature hanging stuffed “seal,” then land on two feet without falling.