The Star's year in review in sports continues with May, when spring came north, and Whitehorse's many athletes finally got to go outside.

The Yukon Pool team, the Bannock Burners, headed to Calgary for the Canadian 8-Ball Championships held in Calgary on May 8. The team placed an impressive 15 out of 37 teams from across Canada.

The weekly Intersport Fun Run/Walk started up at the beginning of May to a high turnout of enthusiastic runners and walkers.

The Whitehorse Minor Soccer players finally got to go outside after a long season at the Canada Games Centre.

The competitive athletics season kicked off with Rodney Hulstein winning the annual Haeckel hill run. The race is a 7.2-kilometre all-uphill, gruelling climb up about 600 metres of vertical rise.

After Jonathon Lucas's awesome season at the Yukon Brewing Copper Haul Twister league, he kicked off the Hot Hounds Dryland dog mushing season with a win in two different categories at the Chocolate Claim Mud Puppy Derby.

The softball season got underway in early May too, coupled with an exciting announcement that a fastball league would be revived in Whitehorse. The Yukon Fastball Association was re-born, and fastball players of all ages dusted off their mitts after 10 years without a league.

May was a month of beginnings that saw the transition from winter sports to summer ones.

June started off with Swim Yukon announcing the the swimmers that would be representing Yukon at the 2009 Canada Summer Games in P.E.I. in August.

Alexandra Gabor and Bronwyn Pasloski were chosen to lead the Team Yukon swim team, a decision that would make history.

On Sunday, June 7, the 11 edition of the Whitehorse Triathlon was staged. This year's running set a record for attendance, with 90 racers turning out to participate in one or more events.

In June the annual Relay for Life was held. Between Whitehorse and Dawson, $180,000 was raised for cancer research and support for the Canadian Cancer Society. The event was held at Shipyards Park here in Whitehorse.

The squash season finished up in early June with the Yukon winning the 2009 Year-End Tournament held in Yellowknife for the second year running.

On June 16, the long-awaited Yukon Fastball League season opened for the first time in 10 years.

The Yukon River Quest started from downtown Whitehorse on June 24. The racers started out on foot from the Rotary Peace Park, and hurried into their boats to start their 740-kilometre journey to Dawson. The race was eventually won by a team from Texas in 40 hours, 52 minutes. The team was closely followed by Team Dene from Saskatchewan for the latter half of the race. Two women's records fell in the 2009 running of the race.

In July, the 2009 Canadian National Silhouette Championships were held in Whitehorse.

Gabor was back in the news with the announcement she had made the Senior National Team and a silver medal at the World Championship trials in Montreal.

She finished the 200-metre free in 1:58.76. The senior team would travel to the FINA Swimming World Cup.

At the 2009 Special Olympics B.C. Provincial Summer Games , reported on July 15, Team Yukon took home three gold and four silver medals.

Pasloski ended the regular swimming season with three bronze medals at the 2009 Canadian Age Group Championships in Montreal.

The Yukon placed second in the Schwan's U.S.A. Cup International Youth Soccer Tournament in the boys U-19 division held July 17-19.

July ended with with Laurie Sokolowski making history at the 2009 Canadian Table Tennis Championships in Trois Rivieres. Sokolowski became the first disabled athlete to represent the territory at the tournament, where she won two bronze medals and one gold.

August was a month of firsts in the history of the Yukon.

The first was adventure racer Denise McHale; she became the first woman to win the Yukon River Trail Marathon overall out of 280 people in three hours, 18 minutes and 34 seconds.

The Yukon Fastball League finished up play in mid-August, with the Roadhouse Pirates sinking the Casa Loma Jays 10-9 in the final game of the season.

To end the month of August, Gabor made Yukon history by getting the Yukon's first ever medal in swimming at the Canada Summer Games with her personal best time in the 100-metre freestyle, 54.47 seconds, but she wasn't quite done.

On August 27, Gabor won the first ever gold medal for the Yukon at the Games in the 400-m free with a time of 4 minutes, 8.1 seconds. She won a third medal, a gold on the 28th of August in the 200-m free with a final time of 1 minute 56.33 seconds.

For the continuation of the year in sports, please see Monday's edition of the Whitehorse Star.