Editor's note: this is the first in 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.

At just 11 years old, Darren White is the first to acknowledge he's a bit short on experience.

With just three years of limited freestyle skiing under his belt, the Canada Games hopeful will be in tough if he does indeed represent the Yukon next month.

Not only are the majority of the freestyle athletes at the Games going to be 15 to 17 years of age, most of them have been competing in the sport for seven or eight years. But while he admits to being somewhat nervous, White hopes his daredevil attitude and enthusiasm will make up for what he lacks in the experience department.

'I didn't really like racing and I always wanted to try freestyle,' explains White, in an interview earlier this week.

After joining the jumps and bumps program up at Whitehorse's Mount Sima ski area a few years back, White believes he's made a lot of progress. Just how far he's come remains to be seen, but you should know the youngster is throwing out tricks that would make most people dizzy.

'I've learned all sorts of tricks,' he says. 'A 360, rail sliding ... skiing half-pipe and moguls. Aerials is probably my favourite.'

In fact, White knows exactly what his goals will be for each event at the Games. Let's see ... ho, hum, just another 720 in aerials, maybe a 540 in the half-pipe and a 360 grab off the moguls.

Piece of cake, right? Not exactly.

White and the rest of the territory's freestyle hopefulsJonathan Lowey, Brayden Kulych, Travis Wilson and William Thompson are currently training on the hill up to three days a week, as well as one day per week of dryland training and sessions at the Polarettes Gymnastics Club in Riverdale.

While he doesn't quite feel ready for the Games just yet, White is adamant he'll be raring to go just over five weeks from now, if he is selected. Right now, head coach Jon Standing has five athletes to chose from and just four spots on the team. One of the athletes, Lowey, is the oldest at 15 and pretty much has a guaranteed spot. The others, at ages 11, 12 and 13, will have to fight it out.

'Some of these athletes are actually new to skiing, but that's one of the reasons I was brought up her,' says Standing, a freestyle guru who arrived in the territory last fall.

'I'm a high-performance coach. With my instructing background, the thought was that hopefully I'd be able to bridge the gap.'

Standing will also assist Dick Eastmure in coaching the alpine team, and has taken on the title of alpine sports coordinator for the Yukon, which means he's in charge of all the new program development.

He comes to Whitehorse from Golden B.C., where he worked for three seasons. He's also worked at ski hills in Jasper, Canmore and Europe previously.

Standing said the goal for the freestyle team at the Canada Games is most likely middle of the pack. While that's not a lofty goal, he admitted, it's realistic.

'Some of the provinces are going to be utterly dominant. We're not expecting the 11, 12 and 13 year olds to fair that well against them. We might pick off one or two strong competitors if they crash or have a bad performance, but we don't want to count on that.

'There's weaker provinces as well and then sort of middle of the pack. We'll be happy if our athletes can pick off some of the weaker provincial athletes.'

There are some events, like the half-pipe, where the Yukon might have a slight advantage over some places, since they are able to train on the pipe on a regular basis and some other hills might not have one.

In the dual mogul competition, Standing says he has a few tricks up his sleeve.

'I've always been strong with dual moguls,' he states.

But single moguls are another story he says, adding that event, along with aerials, may be pretty rough for the Yukon team to compete in.

Powerhouses like Quebec and B.C. are expected to dominate those areas, as well as Alberta and Ontario. At the 2006 junior national freestyle championships, which were held at Sima last March, it was Quebec which looked impressive on the moguls course, particularly in men's competition.

Alberta is expected to do very well in the half-pipe and aerial competitions, since they have a coach who like to take them to somewhat extreme events like the X-Games. B.C. and Ontario, says Standing, 'try to do a little bit of everything.'

The Eastern provinces are a bit of an unknown, although the Yukon coach has heard there is one athlete from Newfoundland and Labrador who has been turning a lot of heads.

'Some of the athletes competing at a high level may not be at the Canada Games, as crazy as that sounds,' he points out. 'It's not an event that counts toward national team selection.'

In the past, he says, events that do count toward national team selection have been scheduled around the same time, causing a conflict. Still, he expects the best young athletes in the country will be here.

And since Canada is one of the best countries in the world in the sport of freestyle skiing, spectators at the Games could be witness to the early performances of a future Olympic medalist.

'Canada right now is certainly in the top two,' says Standing. 'Australia and China have had very strong aerial programs in the past several years. They've been recruiting gymnasts and divers. In moguls, the U.S. has been doing very well in the past few years, as has Scandinavia.'

Being an acrobatic sport, the athletes in freestyle tend to peak at a younger age, he says. For example, at the 2006 Olympics in Turino, one of Canada's top competitors was just 18 years of age.

'One of the difficult things for these athletes, is they have to be able to do everything,' says Standing. 'Now that things are changing, there's a lot more variety in the tricks people can do. It's faster than it used to be. Now they need a complete athlete.'

When he looks five or 10 years down the road, Standing sees freestyle changing even further. It has to, he says, because the rest of the world is catching up and things that seemed difficult five years ago no longer do.

'The way I see moguls going, because everybody is doing the difficult tricks, is they're going to have to make the course itself more difficult. I think they're going to make more rhythm changes to the course, but you'll continue to see difficult tricks.

'In aerials, I think you might see a combination, where athletes will have to do classic aerial tricks and new school aerial tricks.'

The most difficult trick currently being landed in moguls competition, says Standing, is probably a back double fold a backflip with two rotations. While its unlikely any of the athletes competing at the Canada Games next month will pull that off, they will certainly be giving other impressive tricks a try.

Regardless of how the Yukon athletes fare at the Games, Standing says it will just be a great experience for them to witness where the top athletes in the country are at and how far they themselves have to go.

'I've got to convince them it's something that's attainable and we need to get them there as soon as possible, ' states Standing.

'It's a bit of a pressure cooker right now. They're competing against 16 and 17 year olds, so in some respects, they're kids, but in some respects, they have to be treated like young adults. That's difficult for them.

'There's going to be tears, they're going to be frustrated for sure. But I need to take a team that's ready. I expect them all to grow from this.'