Yukon has won its first medal of the 2023 Canada Winter Games.

Biathletes Cheyenne Tirschmann and Cole Germain earned a bronze in the mixed relay Friday. The dynamic duo was within seconds of reaching second. Tirschmann and Germain finished in 59:44.9, 5.5 seconds out of silver.

Isla Hupe and Bruce Porter had a top 10 finish, placing eighth in a time of 1:10:30.6 for a strong overall team result as well.

The biathlon wrapped up their Games Saturday in the mixed relay, with Stella Mueller, Lydia Brown, Matthew London, and Noah Marnik joining forces. The quartet had a strong day on the range and took fourth place, narrowly missing the podium by 74 seconds. Yukon finished in 1:12:19.0, while third-place Alberta finished in 1:11:06.8.

The table tennis team finished their Canada Winter Games strongly Friday, with Kalie Bennett, Victor Li, and Krish Sharma all picking up wins in their final matches of the Games. Sharma lost a Stage 2 match, but bounced back for two 3-1 victories against N.W.T. and Saskatchewan opponents in the Placement round.

Li vanquished a Nunavut opponent 3-2 for his first win of the Games.

Bennett won her second straight match, downing an N.W.T opponent 3-0 on Friday after besting fellow Yukoner Melody Qiu in a hard-fought 3-1 match the evening before.

In short track speed skating Friday, in the 1000 metres, Lucas Taggart-Cox finished third in a quarterfinal race, fourth in a semifinal and third in a finals race. He finished 23rd overall.

Lisa Freeman finished 28th overall in the 1000 metres.

Short track speed skating wrapped up Saturday. Taggart-Cox won the D Final to place 25th overall in the 3000 metres.

Freeman placed third in her 3000 metre D final and 27th out of 42 competitors.

The boys’ squash team of Devon Rayment, Charles Gagne, Rannon Johnson and Forrest Peschke had their best matches of the tournament Friday against the host P.E.I. squash squad. The crowd was loud on the opponents’ home turf but the Yukon cheering section brought the noise right back. The Yukon boys fell 4-0 in a tightly-contested match.

On Saturday, the boys lost to New Brunwick 4-0 but Rayment had a stand out performance by battling hard and taking one match to fall 3-1.

The boys finished 12th overall.

The girls’ team – Keeley Kovac, Kyla Kurzynski, Sandy Nagarajan and Georgia Atkinson – fell 4-0 to N.W.T. and New Brunswick by identical 4-0 scores but had their strongest showing of the Games. The girls finished 12th overall.

Sunday was a travel day for the second wave of competitors.

A light schedule Monday featured the start of female hockey. The Yukon girls took on the host P.E.I. team today at 1 p.m. Yukon time in an Enhanced live-streamed game (featuring play by play commentary) on the Canada Games website https://canadagames.ca.

The girls’ Games continue Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. versus Newfoundland and Labrador. They wrap up the preliminary round-robin with a showdown against N.W.T., also at 9:30 a.m. Yukon time.

– With files from a Team Yukon press release.