Editor's note: this is part of a series of features being published over the next few weeks on the various sports which make up the 2007 Canada Winter Games, and the athletes who will be representing the Yukon in them.

'It's fun. It's fast. It's definitely something with a little bit of danger to it,' says Troy Henry of his sport.

Troy,17, will be the Yukon's 'top dog' in short track speed skating at the 2007 Canada Winter Games, according to his coach Tom Elliot.

With nine years in the sport and numerous competitions under his belt, Elliot says, Troy may just break into that top half of skaters who will be moving up and try to advance and compete for medals at the Games.

It's a sport that attracts individuals who have a bit of a daredevil streak, says Bruce Henry, Troy's father and the president of the Yukon Amateur Speed Skating Association.

The athletes strap 17 inch knives to their feet and wear what amounts to little more than a nylon stocking while flying around a 111-metre track at speeds causing them to experience up to three times the force of a normal gravitational pull, says Bruce.

'You've got to have a lot of heart and a lot of lungs.'

Approximately 64 skaters will be on the starting line at the Canada Winter Games Centre when the short track contest begins.

They will then be weeded out with the top 32 prevailing, slowly whittling down the competitors until just four are left at the starting line competing for the medals.

'You're trying to get to the creme of the crop,' says Elliot of the sport's elimination system.

Each of the Yukon's team of five is expected to skate a minimum of nine times, he says.

Even if they don't make it to the top streams, they'll still get to skate in a final with athletes more at their speed, he says.

'They might not be with the top dogs and going for medals, but they have a chance to win their final heat against skaters grouped around the same speed and that's entertaining when you're in the stands,' he says. 'That's just exciting to see, Yukon colours finish first.'

Alex DeBruyn, Troy, Tara MacKinnon, Jesse Reams and Melanie Tait make up Yukon's short track team and will be competing in the 500-m, 1,000-m, 1,500-m and 3,000-m during the Games. The Yukon will not have a relay team this year.

It's a sport in which Canada is a world powerhouse.

'These guys that do well will go on to make the national team,' says Elliot. 'There will be skaters here who will be on the 2010 Olympic team.'

'There's a lot of top quality skaters at this level,' agrees Bruce. 'It's the best there is in Canada and Canada's one of the world leaders in short track speed skating.

'If you're the best in Canada, chances are you're the best in the world.'

'The competition will be fairly stiff,' concedes Troy. But he says he still hopes to place in the top 15 overall at the Games.

British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec will be the provinces to watch at the Games, says Elliot.

After the preliminary races, the Yukon will be grouped with teams more at its own speed level, he says, and will likely be competing against Nova Scotia, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Manitoba.

'Are we going to get a medal? Not likely,' he says. 'We try to set personal goals.'

Elliot says he'd like to see the Yukon skaters place in the top half overall. During the last Games, the team was at the top of the bottom third, he says.

'We're older and we're better,' he says. 'We've had a lot more training since the last Games and the (Yukon government's) Best Ever funding has helped us put on more camps.'

MacKinnon, at 19 years old, is the oldest member of the Yukon's team. She competed in the last Games in Bathurst-Campbellton, N.B.

She says she went to the 2003 Games expecting it to be a lot like the Arctic Winter Games, but the level of competition was grossly different.

'I ranked pretty low,' says the Haines Junction resident of her placing, joking she was put in the X-level stream.

'I think I can improve my overall standing this time,' she says.

Improving times on some of the distances is her goal for the Games, she adds.

Tait, 14, agrees her goal for the Games will simply be to skate some personal bests.

Tait says she'd just like to have some fun and not get too nervous about the Outside skaters.

'It's how much higher of a level they are all at. They train so much more. They're more competitive, I think, than us,' she says.

Reams agrees, saying, 'There are like kids here, some of them are on the national development team, I mean the next couple years they'll be racing in world cups and stuff.'

It was watching the national team skate in a competition on TV that got the Watson Lake resident interested in speed skating. Reams is just beginning his second year in the sport.

Starting to speed skating in his late-teens and now 17 years old, he says, he's used to being one of the older kids on the rink and at competitions. He says he doesn't bother getting too intimated by the other skaters.

Reams likes the racing aspect of the sport. But speed skating isn't all about going fast, he adds, it's also about strategy.

'Some times you'll have a plan and you'll have your race all figured out and then you'll go out there and the first lap everything changes so you have to make stuff up as you go along.'

Tait agrees. 'When you watch it it looks like they're just skating laps, but it's really like you have to be thinking and planning out what you're going to do. It's harder then it looks.'

It's a race that's all about position, says Elliot.

'You always want to be close to the front of the pack when the pack breaks,' he says.

'We're telling them to move up in the pack.'

'It's strategic to be in the right place at the right time,' agrees Bruce. 'They're hypersensitive to any movement in the pack and they try to stay in position all the time.

'To be in second, third or fourth is advantageous from an energy saving standpoint. But you get back just a little bit when the pack starts to move and the guys come around you and all of a sudden you aren't in fourth anymore, you're in sixth.'

A race doesn't have to be moving fast to be very competitive and strategic, he adds. The length of the race also changes the strategy, he says.

In the 500-m races, there really isn't any strategy, says Bruce. 'Just go hard, turn left and repeat.'

It's at the longer distances the planning starts to emerge, says Elliot, starting at about the 1,500-m event.

Even though the Yukon won't likely be winning any medals in the sport at the Games, it is still going to be a good experience for the skaters, he says.

'You are not going to get faster unless you're chasing somebody or being pushed by somebody.

'If you're not going out there racing against other teams that are better than you then you're not going to pick up some of their racing strategy and techniques.'