Podium finishes for Northern athletes highlight Week 2 of Canada Games

Competitors from across the North are returning home after this year's Canada Winter Games in Red Deer, Alta.

Athletes from Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut competed — and held their own — with some of the best athletes in Canada.

• Recap the North's performance during Week 1 at the CWG

After a strong start to the Games in the first week, athletes picked up right where they left off in week two, with the territories picking up two medals. A bronze medal in judo for Team N.W.T and Yukon winning a bronze in cross-country skiing.

Here's a look back at some of the top stories during the second week of competition.

A bronze medal on the judo mat ...

Wilson Elliot from Yellowknife won the North's first medal of the competition and it didn't take him long to do it.

He defeated his Manitoba opponent in fewer than 18 seconds in the bronze medal match Wednesday afternoon, saying he "went in and did exactly what I planned out in my brain."

"I'm pretty proud. It's a great feeling," Elliot said after the win.

• N.W.T. judo champ wins bronze medal at Canada Winter Games
• N.W.T.'s judo team aims to fulfill big expectations at Canada Games

It's yet another medal for the 18-year-old athlete, who competed with Team Canada at the Pan-American judo championships earlier this summer.

His coach, Mario Desforges, says this could be the start of big things for Elliot, who could look at competing at the Olympics in 2020.

… And another medal on the skiing course

Natalie Hynes followed up with her own bronze medal in the women's 10-kilometre classic cross-country ski race Thursday, finishing only 28 seconds out of first place.

Hynes held off challengers near the end of the race to capture her third-place finish.

• Yukon skier wins bronze medal at Canada Winter Games
• ​Competitive Yukon skier follows after Olympian parents' footsteps

"I didn't think that was possible today, especially at the start — I was kind of hanging back off the lead group," she said after the race. "It's pretty amazing. I wasn't sure if I could hold it out at the end, but I did and I'm happy."

Fellow Yukon skier Amanda Thomson finished 10th in the same race, showing Yukon's skiers are a force to be reckoned with.

Nunavut's serious badminton's contingent

While Nunavut didn't win any medals at the Canada Winter Games, its athletes competed with the best.

Nine athletes travelled to Red Deer for the games, and it would have sent 10, had one athlete not gotten sick after accidentally eating raw polar bear meat.

• Meet 2 badminton players representing the North at the Canada Games

16-year-old Derrick Akeeagok (a medal winner at the 2018 Arctic Winter Games) made it down to Alberta from his home in Grise Fiord, Nunavut. Though he lost both his matches in this tournament, ultimately he said the Games were successful.

"It's amazing to be here," he said. "It's the best and I couldn't ask for more."

A proper send-off for a beloved coach

The Northwest Territories squash team used their week in Alberta to say one last goodbye to coach Melina Turk.

Turk, who spent the past year-and-a-half working with the athletes, left Yellowknife last winter to take a dream job in Bermuda.

• N.W.T. squash players say one last goodbye to former coach at Canada Games

But N.W.T. head coach Spider Jones had a spot for her on the coaching roster, giving her a chance to spend a week with her athletes again.

"[It was] so exciting and such a relief at the same time," Turk said. "It's a pretty tight-knit bond. With squash especially, being sort of a smaller sport … It's a pretty small group, so the relationships get pretty tight."  

Having Turk in their corner appears to have paid off for the team. The girls team finished 7th — a best for the team at the Canada Games and the boys finished 10th.

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