Led by Darby McIntyre’s two golds, Team Yukon secured a total of five medals at the Special Olympic B.C. Winter Games.

The four-day event was held over the weekend in Kamloops, B.C., and saw seven Yukoners participate.

McIntyre, 15, struck gold in both the five- and 7.5-kilometre cross-country ski races – the only Yukon participant to take the top step of the podium.

Three figure skaters also medalled, including Michael Sumner (Level 2 silver), Tijana McCarthy (Level 1 silver) and Aimee Lien (Level 1 bronze).

“I was thinking I was really going to have to work hard and have fun,” McIntyre told the Star today. “All the practice paid off. It’s very exciting.”

McIntyre finished the 7.5-km race in 30:58.14, a full five minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.

He then went on to complete the five-km event in 16:15.79, nearly three-and-a-half minutes up on his nearest rival.

“This was my first time at winter provincials,” he said. “I’ve been skiing since I was five years old when I was in jackrabbits.”

But McIntyre’s first-ever cross-country ski race came just earlier this month at the Marsh Lake loppet, his father Jerome McIntyre noted.

His son, who was diagnosed with autism when he was just three years old, has been training at the local cross-country ski club this winter, but not on skis. He has been running on snowshoes with local coach Don White.

“We weren’t sure how he was going to do, but obviously the training he was doing on snowshoes paid off,” Jerome McIntyre said.

Meanwhile, each of the figure skating medals proved significant, as Lien was competing for the first time in seven years, McCarthy was skating in her first Outside event, and Sumner was performing in the Level 2 category for the first time.

Sumner, 18, is now headed to the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George, where he will compete later this week.

Other athletes in Kamloops included skiers Owen Munroe and Ernest Chua, as well as figure skater Theresa Roberts.

None medalled, but their full results were not yet available as of press time today.

Munroe finished just off the podium in fourth place during Friday’s 7.5-km ski, while Chua placed fifth in the 500-m race.

According to Special Olympics Yukon executive director Serge Michaud, each one of the seven athletes turned in at least one personal best performance at the event.

“I’m very proud of how they finished,” Michaud said this morning. “The hard work that these athletes put in, in preparation for these Games, is really the highlight for us.

“The results speak for themselves, and we’re so proud of how hard these athletes work.”

The B.C. Winter Games is a qualifying event for the 2016 national championships in Cornerbrook, Nfld., but Team Yukon will not be officially announced for the foreseeable future, said Michaud.

Darby McIntyre is slated to compete as a runner for Team Canada at the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles in July.