It was a busy weekend at Mount Sima as the Freestyle Ski Yukon Champs took over the mountain. The weekend featured two events slopestyle and big air and ranged in age from U8 all the way to a Masters class.

On Saturday the skiers competed in the slopestyle competition. The young competitors from U8 to U12 were the first to compete at Pokey Park.

One-by-one the skiers took their turn going through the terrain park. The park featured a pipe and two rail features as well as three jumps at the end.

Freestyle Yukon coach Haydn Griffis said the competition for the young kids was to help them develop a positive attitude.

“We were mainly looking for a positive attitude,” said Griffis. “We don’t want them dwelling on one bad experience. We want the kids to hype each other, have fun and show off some of their tricks.”

Before dropping into the terrain park Griffis said it was great to see the kids conceptualize their run.

“Seeing them able to think of two different runs is an awesome and great experience,” said Griffis. “All the coaches know what tricks they can do and we bounce ideas off of them. For the young kids, they do six features and we see what they are comfortable with.”

For some of the athletes, it was their first taste of competition.

“We try and do competition simulation,” said Griffis. “I am really happy for all of them. We wanted to see how they would perform under pressure. A lot of the time they will get performance anxiety if nervous, you just have to treat it as a training run with friends.”

Griffis said confidence is a key for freestyle skiing.

“Confidence and believing in yourself is huge in this sport,” said Griffis. “We keep encouraging them to stay positive and keeping them engaged by giving them new tricks.”

Griffis believes some of the skiers did not show off all of their moves.

“A few of them are hiding some tricks,” said Griffis. “I’m excited to see where they go.”

The winners of the three youth categories were Will Sutton, Mavik MacKinnon, and Jacob Robertson.

The U18 and Masters categories were held at Coyote Park at Mount Sima. Neil Mikkelsen won the U18 slopestyle and Miguel Rodden took the masters.

“It is a good feeling,” said Mikkelsen. “I put all my effort into the competition. It was about getting better.”

On Sunday the skiers competed in the big air competition. Tammo Waldron won the U8 competition and MacKinnon, Alex Wilson, and Seth Sheardown-Waugh won the U10, U12 and U14 competitions.

Mikkelsen won the big air competition as well with a flat 9 trick.

“I’m happy with how I skied,” said Mikkelsen. “I want to improve my flat 9, I did not land it too well.”

The winner of the masters competition was Rodden.