Ukaleq Slettemark, an Inuk Olympian from Greenland, has hit every single target during two biathlon competitions at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. (Photo courtesy of Ukaleq Slettemark/Instagram)
Greenlandic Inuk biathlete accomplishes ‘remarkable feat’ at Olympics
Ukaleq Slettemark, 20, only woman to shoot ‘clean’ in two events, says Biathlon Canada spokesperson
Updated on Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022 at 8:30 a.m.
An Inuk biathlete from Greenland is garnering praise online for an impressive showing at her first Olympics, after shooting “clean” through two events this week.
Ukaleq Slettemark, 20, was born in Nuuk, Greenland, and is competing with Team Denmark in biathlon at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. Contestants race on skis through a cross-country trail, with stops along the way to shoot at targets.
In her two events, the women’s 15 km individual race and the 7.5 km sprint, Slettemark did not miss any shooting targets on either course.
The first event on Monday had four bouts of shooting five targets, and the second on Friday had two bouts of shooting five targets, meaning Slettemark successfully shot 30 targets total.
Mitch Kaufman is the high performance and office coordinator for Biathlon Canada. In an email to Nunatsiaq News he explained that shooting “30 for 30” means that Slettemark shot “clean” through the first two biathlon events.
“Shooting clean through the first two events is a remarkable feat,” he said, pointing out that Slettemark is the only woman in the 2022 Games so far to shoot clean through both races.
This means that she did not have a one-minute penalty imposed during the individual race, or have to ski a penalty loop during the sprint race, Kaufman said.
Slettemark’s performance got attention from fans on social media. Greenlandic artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, who lives in Iqaluit, congratulated Slettemark on her “outstanding debut” and said “the whole of Inuit Nunaat is cheering for her” in a tweet.
Slettemark ended up finishing 53rd in the individual event and 65th in the sprint, but at 20 years old, likely has many years ahead of her to develop her skills on the trail.
Along with representing Greenland at the Beijing Games, CBC reported that Slettemark also helped design the uniforms worn by the Danish biathlon team, which featured Inuit tattoo lines, or tunniit, in the pattern of the suit.
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games will conclude on Feb. 20. Indigenous-languages coverage of the Olympics this year includes Inuktitut for all of the women’s and men’s hockey games.
Correction: This article was updated from an earlier version to correct the spelling of Ukaleq Slettemark’s name.
Isn’t it Ukaleq?
Ukaleq is her first name not Utareq. Come on Nunatsiaq, learn to Google.
Also of interest, Utareq’s father Øystein (born in Rio) is Danish-Norwegian and her mother Uiloq grandaughter of is half Danish.
Her name is Ukaleq, I think there is a minority of people that’s a little bit threatened by a young Inuk lady that is doing better then themselves and need to find a way to try and diminish her accomplishments.
It says a lot about yourself.
What is it about pointing out her ancestry that you find diminishing?
Because she is an Inuk and she and her family identity as an Inuk and there are some on here claiming that she isn’t for whatever reason.
It’s amazing a young Inuk lady born and raised in Greenland competing in the Olympics and did us proud, being only 20 years old I look forward to watching this Inuk competing for many years.
Her father is Norwegian, he identifies as Inuk? Her mother is half Danish, she was born in Denmark… does she only identify as Inuk? I don’t believe you.
You don’t have to believe me, that’s fine, why don’t you ask Ukaleq and her Greenlandic mother who they are, Ukaleq grew up in Greenland and identifies herself as a Greenlander a Inuk and rightly so, you might have issues with that but frankly what you think about someone else’s identity doesn’t matter as you don’t really know the person. This person is a Inuk and her family and country also thinks and knows she is a Inuk, a keyboard worrier like yourself can’t change that.
Yeah, of course that’s going to happen. An inuk with light features is always going to be told that they arent inuk enough or inuk at all. If she has inuk blood in her blood line, she is inuk!
Sure, but she has light features for a reason to. Did you know that her father is Norwegian? She speaks Norwegian and lives and trains in Norway with the Norwegian ski team. If I was to come here and yell.at everyone that she is Norwegian, would I be right too? I’ve only seen one comment on this page that denies she is an Inuk, the others only point out that she is of mixed heritage, predominantly Scandinavian. That is not a controversial point, so why does it offend you?
What a great accomplishment! I tried to watch out for her but it’s been difficult to catch it on tv.
Great experience and I think most of us Inuit are really proud and amazed to see a Inuk in the Olympics.
She is no Inuk at all , she’s Danish look at her picture her name and her parents origin, when you born somewhere it give you the nationality not the ethnicity, I hate when I read that kind of news.
She is about 3/4 Scandinavian (Danish-Norwegian), 1/4 Inuk. Similar actually to Knud Rasmussen. Does that make her an Inuk? I won’t weigh in on that, and I wouldn’t want to see anyone deny what is hers, but I do kind of cringe at the way media has trumpeted that one slice of her heritage while paying no mention to the more obvious ‘other’ parts.
From there, the real question is why do they do this?
She is an Inuk, Ukaleq is from Greenland, raised and lives in Greenland, her mother is Greenlandic, she speaks Greenlandic, yes most of us have some European blood in our family history but that does not define us from who we are.
Either you are too insecure to see a young Inuk lady doing well and being in the Olympics or you have some other agenda.
I don’t get some of you, something so positive like this young Inuk lady is doing and you have to try to spin it to something else to take away what is great.
Look at our younger generation, a lot of them have a parent that is not Inuk, but they grow up in the north and identify themselves as Inuit, rightly so, who are you to say who is Inuk and who is not?
I never said anything like that actually. Talk about ‘insecure’
On the contrary, very proud Inuk here, I just don’t take someone serious who throws numbers out there and cringe thinking this Inuk lady who identifies as a Inuk should think she also has to acknowledge other cultures because someone think so. And no she doesn’t have to as she is Inuk.
She is of mixed ancestry, regardless. That’s just reality, that you want to deny that and only acknowledge the part that suits you is very strange to me.
I can understand why it may be confusing for you, everyone today has some sort of bloodline with a different group, but we tent to know who we are and what culture we have.
I know people that are part European and part Inuk who grew up all their lives in the Arctic, they consider themselves an Inuk as they are a Inuk, they don’t know or accept the European bloodline as they have not grew up in that place.
Respecting the people that grew up in the Arctic who has a parent who is a Inuk is important and trying to make the person something else is not very respectful.
I am the dirrect opposite. I look very Inuk, but I’m born and raised in Denmark? What am I then, if it’s only by the way I look then Inuk, but I don not talk kalaallisuut, I know very little of Greenlandic traditions. Am I more Inuk than Ukaleq, who grew up in the culture, but look lighter?
Who are you to say who is Inuk and not Inuk? Do you know her personally?
Do you know here in Greenland Inuit we’re given Danish last names? Other places in the north like in Canada Inuit were given English or French first names and kept their Inuk last name, here we kept our Inuk name and used it as our first name.
There are differences everywhere, but you don’t have the knowledge or authority to say who is a Inuk and who is not.
Ukaleq is a Inuk and we are proud of her.
What’s funny is that the twitter praise for her shooting skills is quickly attributed to her ‘Inukness’ … but put her in another less flattering context that might not reflect as well on them and I am certain most of these same people would be calling her out like Yvonne Jones
There are a lot of Greenlanders that have mix Inuit and European bloodlines, but they are Greenlandic, they are born here, grow up here, speak Greenlandic, know their history, eat country food, hunt, camp, respect nature and so on.
We are very proud of our culture, we speak our language read and write in our language every where from school to Facebook.
I don’t know who you are and why you would feel Ukaleq is not an Inuk, obviously you don’t know her.
All I know is she is Inuk, she is Greenlandic.
Most young Inuit here in Nunavut her age don’t speak much Inuktitut anymore, you can see this on FB and it’s all English, schools and homes. I’m always amazed at how Inuit in Greenland can be so strong in their language just looking at some of the group pages on Facebook most people from Greenland are speaking in their language and not Danish or English.
Here we just speak and write in English.
I’m scared in 20 years from now our language will be so little and the new younger generation won’t be speaking Inuktitut at all.
She may not look as Inuk but everything else she does is more Inuk then our young Inuit who speak more English then our own language.