Biathlon Yukon held their first Grey Mountain Cup race of the season Sunday at the biathlon course off Grey Mountain Road.

All racers were competing in the Individual category.

Logan Tirschmann, 13, finished second in Snowshoe Juvenile Boy’s 3.0 km.

“It was hard. It just gets tiring with all the running and you have snowshoes on your feet which make it heavier. With skis you have glide. With snowshoes, you can’t glide, so it’s more work.

“It was tiring. Tried my best.

“My snowshoeing was good. My shooting may have been a bit better but it was good for my average shooting.

“It was nice conditions to race in today.”

Tirschmann is going into the Arctic Winter Games in snowshoe biathlon.

“I’ve just been to one Outside competition before, so it will be kind of new.”

Johna Irving-Staley finished first in the category.

Dilara Sersan finished first in the Snowshoe Juvenile Girl 3.0 km category. She was followed by Emily Toth in second.

Toth said “It was longer than expected but I had fun.”

Sersan added “It feels good to get done but I feel exhausted.”

Both agreed it was very hard racing on snowshoes.

Toth said her shooting “sucked, but I tried my best and I had a new rifle today. I also had to get used to using that. But I think I did fairly good, considering I don’t usually hit any (targets).”

Sersan said “My shooting was OK.”

Both girls are going into the Arctic Winter Games (AWG).

Toth said she was “looking forward to it but I’m nervous.” Sersan agreed.

Niamh Hupé took first in the Junior Girls 6 km.

“It was good. There were definitely some bits that were difficult but I was happy to do a race.”

Hupé said the course was difficult.

It was different than what we normally do … there were a couple hills that just threw me off.”

She was pleased with her shooting.

“It was good. I cleaned (hit all targets) and then hit three and then hit four.”

Hupé is also competing in the AWG in biathlon skiing.

She said “I hope I do well,” but said it’s hard to say how she’ll do at the Games.

Cheyenne Tirschmann finished first in the Young Women’s 10 km.

“It was really good. It was really fast today, which is nice. Snow conditions were great. We all raced yesterday, 10k, so I felt that for sure but it went good. It was nice.”

Tirschmann had problems shooting with the wind her first time around.

“The start, it was really windy, so I was not sighted in properly for that. I got a correction halfway through. And then I actually started hitting (targets). It was really nice.”

“The first time, I hit one for prone, one for standing. And then I got my correction and I hit three for prone and four for standing.”

Overall, she thought she did “pretty good. I think I pushed where it mattered. I feel like at the start, my shooting, I could have focused a bit more. But I got it in check and it went good.”

Tirschmann is competing in the AWG in cross-country skiing.

“I’m really excited. It’ll be great.

“I’m pretty confident. I know there are a lot of fast skiers out there … but I’m just there to have fun. Compete.”

Tirschmann added she “wanted to thank all the volunteers who worked here today and all the athletes. Really fun.”

Laurie Clark raced in the Masters Female 7.5 km.

“It was really fun. I haven’t shot in two months. I’m a coach for the adult program, so I coach more than I actually practice but you just adjust your expectations and then it’s a good time. Really fun.

“My shooting was 50 per cent, so I wish I could do better but given how much I practice, I feel like that was a real score for me.”

Clark was the lone racer in her category.

“My strategy was to ski and shoot faster than all my competitors,” she joked. “Nailed it!”

“Really good fun. Great course and great group to be out with,” she added.

It was Clark’s first race in about two years.

“That was great fun, so there’s lots of opportunities for adults to get out.”

Race organizer Sophia Marnik said the day went “really smoothly. All the volunteers and all the kids and all the athletes and coaches know what’s going on and what to expect, so everything went very smoothly today, so that’s the best we can hope for.”

She acknowledged it was a tough course for some of the athletes.

“It can be, depending on the athletes and what their distance was. Certainly some of the athletes were doing five x 2.5 kilometres, so it’s a 12.5 kilometre race, so that can be pretty tough. It’s long. It’s the longest race for these athletes.”

Marnik said the purpose of the event was twofold. “It’s prep for Arctic Winter Games. That’s why we had athletes in snowshoes. But it was also a bit of a time trial for our Canada Winter Games selection committee. We send youth athletes, so some of our athletes actually bump themselves up a category to be considered for Canada Winter Games. So that was why we had such large youth categories this time.

“And then it’s also the first race in our Grey Mountain Cup event. We have a series of events that we culminate in our Yukon Champs for the Grey Mountain Cup, so this is the first one of those.”

A total of 22 athletes competed in the event.

A sprint is coming up in March and then the Yukon Champs ski-off at the end of March.

Marnik added that “none of this is possible without amazing volunteers and so we are very, very grateful for the volunteers that come out and help us here today, and every day.”

In other categories, Brian Healy was the lone competitor in the Masters Male 10 km.

An exhausted Matthew London collapsed in first in the Youth Men’s 12.5 km.

Gallagher D’Abramo was the lone competitor in the Senior Boys 7.5 km.

And Mason Parry finished first in the Junior Boys 6 km category.