A Hay River brother and sister – Gaius Crook and Michaela Crook – have qualified for the 2018 Arctic Winter Games (AWG) following territorial trials late last week in their hometown.
Michaela Crook made Team NWT in the junior female snowshoe biathlon division.
The biathlon competition in March in Hay River will be her fourth time at the AWG.
"I'm really happy I made it this year and I'm looking forward to competing in March here at home," said the 17-year-old. "I think it's really awesome because it's kind of come full circle now because the first three games I went and travelled to all the different places and now that it's in my hometown and it's my last year, I really want to do my best."
Thirteen-year-old Gaius Crook, who will be participating in his second AWG, qualified in the juvenile male ski biatholon.
"It's going to be really special because this is where I grew up and skied all the trails here," he said of the AWG in March.
In addition, Elli Cunningham was named an alternate in the junior female ski biathlon division.
Based on combined race results, the top two athletes in each of eight categories were named to Team NWT, and the third-place athlete was name an alternate.
Athletes finishing in the top two positions must commit to their position on Team NWT biathlon and are not eligible to try out for other sports in the January trials.
Chuck Lirette, the biathlon coach in Hay River and an organizer of the territorial trials, said he is proud of the three Hay River athletes.
Lirette said he is also pleased to see the regional diversity of the biathlon team, with competitors coming from the far north to as far south as Fort Smith.
"The biathlon team really represents all regions of the Northwest Territories," he said. "So that's pretty cool to see."
Lirette said such regional diversity is not unusual for the biathlon team, especially since snowshoe biathlon encourages athletes to compete from smaller communities that don't have ski trails.
