Special Olympics Yukon has announced three Yukon athletes have been selected to Team Canada for the upcoming 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games, taking place in Austria next March.

Ernest Chua has been selected as a member of Team Canada’s cross country ski team, and Tijana McCarthy and Michael Sumner have both been selected to represent the country in figure skating.

“Special Olympics Yukon is excited to send three athletes as part of Special Olympics Team Canada, the largest representation ever from Yukon on our Canadian team!” Thomas Gibbs, president for Special Olympics Yukon, said this week. “They have shown dedication and commitment to reach their sport goals”.

Yukon Athletes selected to Team Canada will start their journey to Austria in the next couple of weeks as their first official training camp for the Games takes place in Ontario. Over the next 10 months, Special Olympics Team Canada athletes will be hard at work, training for the experience of a lifetime.

Special Olympics Team Canada will consist of 110 athletes, 35 mission staff and coaches, two team managers and one Chef de Mission, and will be competing in six different sports in the Winter Games. Team Canada athletes were selected based on their performance at the recent Special Olympics Canada 2016 Winter Games in Corner Brook, N.L. Over 650 athletes from across Canada competed at those Games, vying for a spot on Special Olympics Team Canada.

“Congratulations to our Yukoners representing Canada in 2017!,” said a statement by Special Olympics Yukon this week.

Serge Michaud, the organization’s executive director, said this is the first time the Yukon has sent more than one athlete to the World Winter Games since 1997 when brother and sister Kathrine and Daniel Hall represented Canada in figure skating.

The Yukon has had least one athlete on the national team for the Winter Games since 1997.

“It’s pretty overwhelming,” Michaud said the selection of three Yukoners. “I just goes to show you their training and their dedication to their sport is second to none.”

Michaud said to have five Yukon athletes compete at the national Winter Games in Corner Brook this past winter was great.

To have three of those athletes selected to represent Canada in Austria is “amazing,” he said.

Chua returned home from Corner Brook with gold in figure skating, as did Sumner. Chua returned with silver in the one-kilometre cross country skiing event and gold in the 500 metre.

Sumner also competed for Canada in figure skating at the 2013 Winter Games in South Korea. He returned home with gold.