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YK Delta Turns Out Strong Teams For Native Youth Olympics

Gregory Lincoln
/
The Delta Discovery

The Native Youth Olympics is unlike any other competition or sport.  The difference is there at the beginning, when the National Anthem is sung in Yup'ik.

It can also be seen when all 50 teams walk in with banners.  This year among the obviously strong and athletic bodies is one tiny 13-year-old boy on crutches. Chandler Ung'aaq Ulroan is an athlete who uses his wrist to hang from a horizontal pole while being carried, once, almost twice, around the massive sports arena in his first competition, just missing a medal in the wrist carry.

The wrist carry is said to test the strength and endurance of hunters.

But it's not just the unusual athletic skills in these games that make them fundamentally different. It's the way competitors are willing to help each other improve their performances. This is something that has been happening in arctic Native games since the beginning.

Gregory Tungwenuk Nothstine of Wales, a grey-haired volunteer official at the NYO,  remembers his first Native game when he was one of the remaining four in contention for the one-foot high kick. A native kid came up to him to give him some pointers.

"I had the same western values everybody else had. When you go into competition, you want to do your very best, beat the person down," he said laughing. "You're my competitor. I'm going to do everything I can to beat you."

Nothstine ignored the advice and ended up taking fourth place.  His coach took him aside and explained that the kid, whose name was Reggie Joule, was practicing the traditional Native value of cooperation.

"When you're hunting this is a value we need," Nothstine said. " You share the knowledge of where the resources are, the best ways to get them ,and we hope for success."

This week at the NYO in Anchorage, all are helping each other improve their performance, regardless of team membership.  A competitor facing a tough challenge would clap a rhythm and the crowd would join in to pump up the energy, and sometimes it works.

Mattie Co of Mat-Su, strong in the one-foot high kick, advised competitor Julianne Wilson from the Kenai, and ended up standing next to her on the podium in second place.

"When you see people do their best," Co said, " and you think maybe my advice helped that a little bit. It just makes you feel really great."

This year the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta sent strong teams to the games.

Yup'ik girls dominated the one-hand reach, which is a tough feat of balance, body control, core strength and timing.  It requires athletes to float above the floor with nothing touching but the knuckles of one hand while reaching with the other hand for the ball hanging on a string above. Chantel Snyder from the Lower Kuskokwim school district took second place; June Tuluk from Chevak took third; and Tara Agwaik from the lower Yukon School District came in fourth.

The Gold went to Joeli Angukarnaq Chandler from Bethel with a 58-inch reach that was quick and sure.

"My knuckles sometimes wear out. That is why I go quick. The balancing is the easy part, but you have to make sure that you're in the right position to get ball, and you have to reach a certain way. You can't bend your elbow."

In all, Bethel took home four medals: three silvers and one gold. Chevak got three medals. The Lower Kuskokwim School District took home eight medals, but not as much gold as they had hoped. Coach Jimmy Charles from Newtok was philosophic about his team's performance.

"We have a young team this year. (For) most of them, it's the first time going into state. For them it's a new experience, different atmosphere, different people, a lot more competitors."

The Lower Kuskokwim ended strong by taking first in the last game at the NYO - the  boy's "Seal Hop" - possibly the toughest skill. Athletes lie on the ground, lifting themselves on their knuckles and toes and proceed to use, core, back, leg and arm strength to hop across the gym. 

Lining up shirtless, 17-year old, Jaden Anaver from Kipnuk had a washboard chest. He didn't just win. He left his competition lying far behind as he went the entire distance of the arena, seal-hopped the turn and went over half way back to finish at 156 feet, 9 inches. That's 39 feet further than his closest competitor.

"I practice it a lot. I've been good at it since the sixth grade," Anaver said.

The organizers of the Native Youth Olympics have surveys indicating the games teach kids to work hard and work together. They also seem to transfer that effort to their academics.

Greg Nothstine doesn't doubt it. He points to his youth in the Native games and how it turned his school life around.

"If it wasn't for the Native Youth Olympics, I would never have graduated from high school, plain and simple. When I saw other non-native students playing and having fun and liking it, that gave me social permission to just say, 'Okay my heritage does have value, and it's okay to be Inupiaq.'"

Nothstine's grades went up from C's and F's to A's and B's.