Three athletes from the Yukon's alpine skiing team have been competing in Northern B.C. Zone and Kootenay Zone races over the past two weeks, hitting the slopes at both Troll Mountain in Quesnel, B.C., and Panorama Ski Resort.

The first stop was Troll Mountain, where Patrick Bell, Alex Peepre and Derek Wilson collected five medals in the super giant slalom and slalom events. About 65 ski racers from throughout central and northern B.C. competed in the national points race.

In the super giant slalom races, Peepre raced to a bronze medal and a fourth-place finish in the K2 age class. Bell placed a solid fifth and sixth while Wilson, competing in the K1 class, skied to a silver and a bronze medal. This was his first Northern B.C. Zone race.

Wilson also won bronze in the first K1 slalom race, but missed a gate in the second race. Bell captured a bronze medal and a fourth place-finish in the slalom races while Peepre placed fourth and seventh, reversing their respective results from the super giant slalom.

'The racers did really well,' said coach Dick Eastmure in a news release. 'Especially considering how the cold (Yukon) weather in December and January cut into our training time.'

From Troll Mountain, the Yukon team headed to Panorama to compete in the Kootenay Zone national points races. Skiing on a very icy course, Bell, Peepre and Wilson competed in both slalom and giant slalom events.

In the slalom, Peepre tied for eighth place in the K2 class, in a field of more than 40 racers aged 14. Wilson and Bell had more problems with the courses, as Wilson fell on his first run and Bell fell on his second run.

In the giant slalom, fortunes were reversed for the three Yukoners. Wilson, age 13, finished sixth in a field of 20 K1 racers while Bell took fourth place in the K2 class. Peepre fell on his second run. On the second run in the giant slalom, Bell clocked the third fastest time of any of the male racers.

Some World Cup teams train at Panorama early in the season, and they require hard icy slopes. To ensure these conditions, water is injected into the snow on the main training runs, forming a thick layer of ice when it freezes. Normally snow would cover this surface by now, but the snowpack is extremely low at Panorama this year, as it is in most of B.C., and the racers had to deal with the harder conditions.

'The course was like a World Cup track, meaning blue ice,' said Eastmure.

Eastmure added the Yukoners results were particularly impressive as they started near the back of the pack in each of the races, and thus were racing on an even icier course than the front runners. Starting positions are based on a complicated points system, and skiers racing regularly in more competitive events have more opportunities to improve their standings by lowering their total number of points.

Competing against teams from Fernie, Panorama, Kimberly, Nelson and other areas in the Kootenays, the Yukoners had higher points totals than most of the other racers, particularly in the giant slalom.

They were racing in Panorama only because -45 C weather had prevented them from driving to a race in Terrace, B.C. in January, and they needed some experience in a giant slalom event before the Western Canadian Juvenile Ski Championships, which will be held in Whitehorse March 19-21.

About 100 athletes from across Western Canada are expected at the juvenile championships, and Eastmure said the experience racing on such a demanding course should give the local athletes even more confidence when competing in more typical conditions.