Greenland’s elimination of six AWG sports sparks move to alternate event in 2016

Organizers of the 2016 Arctic Winter Games in Nuuk, Greenland, seen here, say the city lacks the facilities for six sports which are usually included in the games. Now Alaska and the three Canadian territories want to see an alternate venue for sports excluded from the 2016 AWG. (FILE PHOTO)

Even before the 2014 Arctic Winter Games in Fairbanks, Alaska have taken place, Alaska, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are already worrying about the 2016 games — and making alternate plans to hold a separate winter sports event in another place for sports eliminated from the Greenland program.

That’s because the 2016 Arctic Winter Games in Nuuk will not feature six events due to a lack of sporting infrastructure in Greenland’s capital city: midget hockey, dog mushing, curling, speed skating, figure skating and gymnastics.

Following a recent decision by the Arctic Winter Games International Committee to support Greenland’s program for 2016, the ministers responsible for sport in Canada’s three territories, along with the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, say they plan to work together to ensure that the sports eliminated from the 2016 AWG in Greenland take place in some alternate, multi-sport venue.

Representatives of the six permanent partners in the AWG met recently with the international committee to discuss the 2016 games.

After that meeting, the committee said it would move ahead with the approved sport program for the Greenland games.

However, now another group, led by the NWT, said in a joint release, circulated June 11, plans to research and provide options for a separate event, outside the AWG —  that would be a “non-affiliated alternate event for the excluded sports.”

That newly-formed committee said that its members, Alaska, Yukon, NWT and Nunavut, will work to identify a jurisdiction that can host an event for the excluded AWG sports.

They plan to scout out locations in the NWT, Yukon, Nunavut and Iceland.

“We feel that it is important to support the development of these sports in the North and provide our young athletes with an opportunity to train and compete at a high level. This event will provide athletes and coaches with a goal to train toward and the opportunity to represent their home territories in a high-level competition,” Nunavut’s community and government services minister, Lorne Kusugak, said in the joint news release.

The committee is being asked to report back to the GNWT by October 2013.

The GNWT’s municipal and community affairs minister, Robert C. McLeod, said planners have to look at the logistics of holding an alternate event.

“However, we are confident that an alternate event will be planned and will give the athletes a very important sporting experience.”