Badminton lovers new and old to the sport had plenty of opportunities to work on their drives, clears and serves Friday at the Yukon School's Athletic Association Grade 7 Badminton Tournament.

The event was hosted at Takhini Elementary School and Elijah Smith Elementary School and featured participation from both Grade 6 and 7students.

"It went great," said Lisa Harvey, the co-organizer of the tournament.

"I just think the kids always come excited to play and the sportsmanship is always great.

They are somewhat responsible for scoring their own games and making judgments and working with their opponents to agree on calls. They just seem to have a lot of fun."

This was the eighth annual Grade 7 badminton tournament and it featured 10 schools in total. Five schools competed at Elijah Smith Elementary, while the other five participated at Takhini Elementary.

Each school offered a separate competition. The event is open to any elementary school in the Yukon, but this year only Whitehorse schools participated.

The schools that were involved included Elijah Smith, Whitehorse Elementary, Golden Horn, Selkirk, Holy Family, Takhini, Jack Hulland, Hidden Valley, Christ the King and Ecole Emilie-Tremblay.

Both school venues included five divisions.

The different categories of competition included boys' singles, girl's singles, boy's doubles, girl's doubles and mixed doubles.

Within each division there were two separate pools and a round robin format was used to determine final placing.

To limit the amount of time the tournament took to conclude, each school was allowed two entries per category.

Some schools had mini-tournaments to determine student qualification.

In the playoffs, the first place finisher in one pool crossed over to play the runner-up in the other in a semi-final matchup.

The winners in the semi-finals qualified for the gold medal game. Gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded at both school venues for the competition.

At Elijah Smith Elementary, Jocelyn Wynnyk from Golden Horn finished with top honours, winning the gold medal in the girl's singles event.

Paige Savard of Whitehorse Elementary also played very well, placing second at the event, while Golden Horn's Vera Schall claimed the bronze medal in her final match of the tournament.

In the boy's singles category, Tristan Olynyk of Golden Horn showed off his skills in the sport.

Olynyk defeated Chris Little in their gold medal matchup.

In the bronze medal contest, Jared Hrycan of Whitehorse Elementary finished third overall in the singles division.

The team of Julianna Campbell and Sonali Malhotra from Whitehorse Elementary were rock solid in the girl's doubles category, winning gold against runners up Jeni Pierce and Jenna Duncan, who represented Golden Horn Elementary. Golden Horn rounded out the top three with Winona Gollschewski and Kylie Malo claiming the bronze medal in the category.

Whitehorse Elementary had a strong showing in the boys' doubles event, winning two out of three medals.

The school placed first with the team of Michael Amirault and Kieren Small winning the gold, while Graeme Close and Youje Blackburn finished in third place.

Graham Mainer-Pearson and Steven Qiu from Selkirk School finished with the silver medal.

Tatum Koser and Owen Hedstrom-Langford defeated fellow Golden Horn schoolmates Nahani Dynes and Trevor Bray in the gold medal matchup for the mixed doubles event. Shawn Kitchen and Reina Thurmer from Whitehorse Elementary finished with third place honours.

At Takhini School, Hidden Valley's Cassie Nicol took care of business, winning the gold medal in her girl's singles match against Lindsey Keaton from Jack Hulland Elementary. Jack Hulland also came in third place in this category, with Deanna Klubi winning the bronze medal.

Hidden Valley finished in the top two spots in the boys' singles category.

Brett Roulston claimed the gold medal, while Chris Anderson finished in second place.

Khang Pham of Takhini Elementary won his bronze medal matchup.

Emeraude Dallaire-Robest and Charlotte Rentmeister gave Ecole Emilie-Tremblay Elementary the school's best placing of the competition with a gold medal victory over Jessica Christiensen and Megan Lanigan from Jack Hulland in the girl's doubles category.

Thalia Bayley and Katrina Davey, who were representing Christ the King Elementary, finished in the third spot.

Hidden Valley claimed another gold medal in the boy's doubles event with the team of Marten Seely and Ryley Andrew finishing first.

Luke Londero and Scott Meredith from Ecole Emilie-Tremblay placed second,while Gage Preece and Jon Koltun won the bronze medal for Christ the King Elementary.

In the mixed doubles category, Robin Bardubitzki and Tamara Greek won Takhini Elementary's lone gold medal, while Logan Frasher and Megan Yound from Christ the King came in second. Cody Hurlburt and Teah Dickson finished third for Hidden Valley.

Golden Horn finished with the most medals with an impressive total of seven, while Whitehorse Elementary placed a close second in the overall medal haul with six.

Hidden Valley came in third with five medals altogether.

Harvey said she was impressed with the play she saw at the tournament.

"Lots of good play and lots of winners and because there is sort of two different (competitions), double the amount of kids actually come out winning a medal," she said.

"It is amazing how their play gets better sort of even over the day. There are some very talented badminton players at this age level, so it's good."

In her first year competing at the tournament and playing the sport itself, Paige Savard, 13, finished with an impressive silver medal in the girls' singles event for Whitehorse Elementary.

She said she enjoyed taking part in the competition.

"It was lots of fun and I got silver," she said.

"It's great. I had a goal when I came in here that I would try my best and hopefully get a medal and I did."

Savard said her only expectations heading into the event were to have fun and to do her best.

She decided to enter the singles event after being told she had a real talent in badminton.

"Everyone kept on saying that I was really good, so I thought I might as well give it a try," Savard said.

"I just love sports and playing them. I thought that I would give it a try and see if I made the team and I did."

Her overall record ended up being 4-2. Savard said she improved as the tournament went on, especially with things such as returning low shots.

She said she wasn't disappointed about not winning the gold.

"Silver is fine," Savard said. "It's great I got a medal. I'm happy."

Savard, who is presently in Grade 7, said she plans on staying involved with the sport in high school, which is in large part thanks to her involvement in this year's tournament.