The second go-around of Youth A competition was strong, but not as thoroughly dominating as Thursday's first FIS World Cup race of the year at Whistler Sliding Centre.
In the Youth A Men's event, Pemberton's Adam Shippit (1:18.097) took home his second gold in as many races, while the Canadian sweep continued with Whistler's Reid Watts moving up to silver from bronze (+0.193) and Squamish's Nicky Klimchuk-Brown (+0.300) jumped onto the podium to take bronze after taking fourth on Thursday. Whistler's Matt Riddle was the odd one out, having posted a solid first run (39.159) on Saturday to sit second overall, but suffered all kinds of trouble his second time down (39.515) and ultimately finished seventh (1:18.674).
Calgary's Carter Malyk finished fifth (1:18.58) after a rough run on Thursday.
With freezing rain falling for much of the event, conditions were different from Thursday. Shippit said the slightly warmer temperatures allowed for a slightly more forgiving track, and he felt he was able to take advantage.
"The ice conditions were a bit different since it warmed up a bit," Shippit said. "I had some stress on me to repeat what I did last race. It was good, though, I think I handled it well."
The Canadians were unable to repeat a podium sweep in the Youth A Doubles as only one medal was awarded in the end. The Canadian teams of Riddle/Watts and Klimchuk-Brown and Lucas Gebauer-Barrett were disqualified for carrying too much weight, and the Ukrainian pair of Roman Radchenkov and Orest Sobota did not complete their second run, leaving Canadians Evan Wildman and Heath Karpyshyn as the gold medallists after initially finishing third (122.171).
On the women's side, Calgary's Kyla Graham (1:21.523) repeated her bronze medal performance from Thursday. Russia's Yulia Naumova (1:21.498) and Olesya Mikhaylenko (+0.011) were first and second, a reverse of their Thursday showings. Pemberton's Nicole Pidperyhora was fourth (1:21.763).
Lastly, Germany's Nico Semmler and Johannes Pfeiffer (1:17.739) made it onto the podium - winning gold, no less - in the Junior Doubles event after being shut out Thursday. Russia's Evgeny Evdokimov and Alexey Groshev were second (+0.115) and Germany's Florian Loeffler and Manuel Stiebing were third (+0.194).
The final day of racing begins tomorrow at 9 a.m. The junior men and women will compete.
