FORT McMURRAY, Alta. In past Games, there's been a superstition that being your province or country's flag bearer brings bad luck in competition.

Yukon cross-country skier Brittany Greer certainly proved that wrong though, as she brought home four gold ulus one in the junior female 750-metre sprint, one in the five-km classic, one in the 10-km free and one in the junior girls relay.

'Today was just the perfect ending to everything,' said Greer after winning the sprint. 'Usually the sprint is my best event so I was really nervous.'

Greer, who got gold in all four events last AWG as well, said she put a lot of pressure on herself this year to try and complete that feat again. And this year, said the athlete, she had some tough competition from the Sami, Russia athletes.

'It's better that way, when you can say you fought hard for it,' said Greer. 'Compared to 2002, this year was harder. In 2002 I had never been to Arctic Winter Games for skiing before so I no idea what to expect. I had no goals, so it was less pressure.'

Yukon ski coach Alain Masson said he was happy with the entire team's performance.

Greer's younger sister Janelle won gold in the midget female three-km classic, silver in the five-km free, bronze in the 750-m sprint and silver in the midget female relay.

Juvenile male skier Ray Sabo won silver in both the five-km classic and 7.5-km free races, as well as a bronze in the juvenile male relay. The Yukon squad also won a silver in the midget male relay.

'We did really well in both classic races,' said Masson. 'Our best race of the week was the relay for the junior girls. The teams from Sami and Alaska had done a lot better as far as the whole team, so it was a surprise. I was expecting bronze.'

Masson said the sprints, the last races of the week, went pretty well but the team seemed to be fading a little bit. A few of the skiers started getting sick and some were very tired, said the coach. Sabo didn't race in the sprint because he had a sore throat while Bryn Knight didn't take part because she was too exhausted and nursing some old injuries, according to Masson.

All of the skiers will have little time to rest before the national championships, which get underway March 14 in New Brunswick. Masson said they will take part in a little bit of training back in Whitehorse but mainly just recover from the Games.

Yukon skier Graham Nishikawa, who is currently training in Canmore, Alta., will join the team at nationals. Masson is counting on Nishikawa and Brittany Greer to achieve success for the territory, although Greer is cautious to set her goals too high.

'I have some pretty tough competition there,' she commented. 'I just want to have good races and fully recover from this.'

The 2004 AWG were the last ones for Greer, who will graduate from high school this year. She plans on training hard all summer, in hopes of winning a scholarship from the University of Anchorage for skiing. Then she would race in the NCAA.

The Yukoner is confident that there are younger skiers who will take the banner from her.

'This year, what was cool for me is I raced with my sister,' she smiled. 'I'm really proud of all the midget skiers. They're all too young for their age category, which shows so much future potential. They're medalling and placing in the top 10 right now so imagine what they're going to do in the future.'

'I'm happy to see we have young midget girls doing really well,' agreed Masson. 'Janelle (Greer) and Heidi (Brook) are all younger than midget. Their actually mini -midget, so it's looking good for the future. That's where skiing is going to be in the future.'