Snowboard Yukon hosted the Toyota Grom Series competition at Mount Sima Jan. 22. The Grom is part of the Canada Snowboard Riders Program.

Snowboard Yukon coach and Grom organizer Antje Schiebel explained how it worked.

“It was on our big course, the banked slalom course. It’s a timed event. And so it’s basically on top of Pokey (Park), and it looks almost like a border cross. But it isn’t. So, the banked means it has these wide sidewalls and basically going in and making a lot of turns and it’s not long. So it’s basically people can make it within a minute or two. So it’s not a very long track, but it’s pretty technical.

“It runs under our shredders program we have every year in January and February, which is part of our long term athlete development, the shredders. Everybody that is signed up for our shredders program, including our competition team, took part this time.”

The age range of the athletes was eight to 17 years old.

Nineteen athletes took part. There are 25 athletes in the Shredders program.

“We have some female shredders, as usual, and they all took part in it as well,” related Schiebel.

Schiebel said the event went really well.

“As you know, conditions sometimes and the weather is challenging but with the works of our team and our board and some help from Mount Sima we had a really successful event. Kids were happy; warm day.”

Schiebel said some of the competitors stood out.

“Some of the girls really did amazing. We have some shredders, that’s like their second season and they’re usually really, really intimidated. One of them was Blue Jones and she had a couple of falls and she always got up and made it through the course.

“All the boys, they’re all standing out in their own ways. (It was) pretty cool to see our competition team actually, they usually don’t take part in these Grom events at all, but they used it as a last training chance before the Arctic and Canada Winter Games. So that was cool to see.”

Schiebel figured there are five to seven Snowboard Yukon athletes taking part in the Arctic Winter Games.

Of course, some sweet prizes were handed out.

“We usually do for the first and second Grom – we have two of those a season – we have medals we get made,” said Schiebel. “And mix it up every year a little bit depending on funding and sponsorship. So this year we just bought some little treat bags for the kids. That just goes a long way, a little bit of sweets, a little bit of treats.”