Team Juneau was a rookie team at last year’s NYO Games, and so it wasn’t surprising the team only came home with just one medal.
The Games, which consist of 10 events born from “the skills and abilities originally involved with subsistence activities,” bring together hundreds of experienced athletes from around the state.
[Photos: Native Youth Olympics]
With more experience under their belt, the team was ready to take the next step this year. NYO coach Kyle Worl began holding practice back in October.
“A lot of NYO teams don’t start training until spring semester, but since we’re newer to the Games, we wanted to get a headstart in our training,” Worl said.
With still one day of the competition left, the squad has doubled its medal count from last year, finishing third in the kneel jump and fifth in the Eskimo stick pull.
Thunder Mountain junior Matthew Quinto, the bronze medalist, has been one the team’s best athletes over the past two years. He was named the best overall male athlete at the 2019 Traditional Games, winning gold medals in the scissor broad jump, one-foot high kick, two-foot high kick and Alaskan high kick.
Quinto, Dzantik’i Heeni eighth grader Skylar Tuckwood and Yaaḵoosgé Daakahídi senior Josh Sheakley all competed last year at the NYO Games. This year’s first-time competitors from Juneau featured Yaaḵoosgé’s Erick Jim, Juneau-Douglas’ Andrew Ostman and Thunder Mountain’s Sara Steeves, Kellie James, Kyle Abbott, Ezra Elisoff, Sterling Zuboff, Shane Paul and Ashton Oyloe.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com . Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.
Matthew Quinto performs the Kneel Jump at the 2019 NYO Games at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage on Thursday, April 25, 2019. Quinto took third place in the event. (Michael Dinneen | For the Empire)
Skylar Tuckwood competes in the One-Foot High Kick at the 2019 NYO Games at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage on Saturday, April 27, 2019. (Michael Dinneen | For the Empire)
