Figure skaters in the Arctic Edge Skating Club put on a show Saturday in front of their first Yukon audience at this year's Yukon Gold Nugget Interclub competition.

The competition was held at Takhini Arena and featured 22 participants, who performed around 40 different skates. The age ranges on the skaters were as young as eight to 17 years old.

"It went well," said Cheryl Van Blaricom, publicist for the Arctic Edge Skating Club.

"A lot of skaters skated very well, so that was really encouraging to see actually. Some of the kids skated really strongly, that doesn't always happen, but actually the majority of them had really good stakes, so it was really nice."

The competition featured a variety of different skating categories, including creative, interpretive, free skate and elements.

The Gold Nugget Interclub competition has been held for more than 10 years. Skaters compete for the Yukon championship, but this year all of the participants were residents of Whitehorse.

Van Blaricom said it's important for the skaters to experience a competitive meet with judges.

"Many of these skaters have never been out to competitions before and if they have many of them only go once per year," she said.

"So the aspect of skating in front of judges and doing that in a very precise way where you get a timed warm up and then you skate your program on the ice by yourself is a very different experience than practicing your program everyday just on the ice while there is coaches and other people there.

"It is a very different experience you perform differently, so it's really important that people get experience doing that because that's a big part of the sport of figure skating."

She said some of the competition's highlights included the creative skating category.

The creative events are ones where skaters get a one minute warm up before listening to a piece of music that they have never heard before, which is played twice. After the second time it is played, a skater would perform a program to that music, making it up as they go.

"There was some really good, fun interpretation of the music in the creative event," Van Blaricom said. "It was really fun to see how well some of the younger skaters did, it was really neat."

Zoey Krause finished first in the pre-preliminary creative and Maria Peters placed second, while in the preliminary creative was won by Mikaela Lane. Jessica Diakow came in second and Kelcy Armstrong finished third.

Rachel Pettitt locked down first place in the junior bronze creative and Maya Austin came in second.

One of the most popular events was the free skates, which featured four categories in total.

Morgan Madden was the top skater in the Canskate ladies freeskate, while Abigail Cuenza came in second and Kristen Legrow placed third.

In the pre-preliminary ladies freeskate category, it was Kayla Armstrong who finished on top, with Rasheeda Slater coming in second place and Brittany Au locking down the third position.

Nikita White finished on top in the junior bronze ladies freeskate and Maya Austin came in second.

Other results included the pre-preliminary ladies elements, which was won by Kayla Armstrong, while Brittany Au enjoyed her best finish, placing second. Rasheeda Slater came in third.

Au, 12, recently returned to the sport of figure skating after taking a year off in 2007-08. She said she was nervous at her first competition, but was pleased with how she did. Au said finishing second in elements meant a lot to her.

"I thought I was going to do bad, but I did really good on that one and that one felt the best," she said. "All of the other girls had been skating for that year that I missed out, so I thought I was doing not as well, so when I went to the competition I realized that I was doing way better, as good as the other girls too."

Other winners in the elements included Jessica Diakow, who won the preliminary ladies elements. Mikaela Lane placed second in the preliminary ladies elements.

Junior bronze ladies elements was won by Kelcy Armstrong and Nikita White came in second.

Armstrong also won the pre-introductory interpretive, while Rasheeda Slater came in second and Jessica Diakow placed third.

Rachel Pettitt won the introductory interpretive and Maddison Jarvis finished in second.

The bronze interpretive was won by Bryn Hoffman and Ariel House came in second.

Other upcoming Arctic Edge Skating Club events include the Christmas Skate, which is being held at the Canada Games Centre on Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

There will also be a fun skate for all club members on Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The next competition the club will compete in is the B.C. Coast Winter Skate from Jan. 23 to 25. It is a qualifier for the Pacific Star Skate championships. The Pacific Star Skate is from March 5 to 9 in Surrey. B.C.