Inuvik teenager Underwood Day seized his opportunity with both feet on day two of the Arctic Winter Games in Nuuk, Greenland.
The 15-year-old won two gold ulus in Tuesday’s Arctic sports events, first leaping 118.5 cm in the junior boys’ kneel jump before posting 213.4 cm in the two foot high kick – more than 10 cm clear of his nearest rival.
Day doubled Team NWT’s gold ulu tally at the Games with his victories. The territory lies fifth in the standings with four gold, two silver and four bronze ulus.
One of those silvers came from Yellowknife 13-year-old Kea Furniss, featured by My Yellowknife Now earlier in the week.
Just four months after taking up the sport of snowshoeing, Furniss was denied juvenile gold by one hundredth of a second in a stunning photo finish in Nuuk. Fiona Huang was a bronze ulu winner in the junior event.
Matthias Steiner picked up silver in snowshoe biathlon, where Julienne Chipesia won bronze, and Spencer Littlefair will take home a bronze ulu from ski biathlon despite confusion over his result.
Though the published results show Littlefair finishing fourth, the medal ceremony has already taken place – at which he was awarded the bronze.
“We were very close to two more medals,” said biathlon coach Chuck Lirette.
Team NWT pulled off two shocks inside the futsal arena, where Greenland have so far looked like the team to beat.
The territory’s intermediate girls beat the hosts 1-0 and the junior girls beat them 3-1, dismaying a packed home crowd to the extent that boos were heard as the teams left the field.
There were also victories for the volleyball boys and girls over Greenland and Yukon respectively, but the basketball teams were both defeated by Alaska.
Tamara Jovic reached the table tennis singles quarter-finals, while in Iqaluit the girls’ hockey team beat Yukon 3-0 playing shortened periods following a blizzard delay. The bantam team was beaten 3-1 by Alaska, fighting to the end in one of the closest contests of the Games so far.
