Student athletes and their friends, families and coaches from around the state filled the stands at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center over the weekend for the 2026 Native Youth Olympics.
Unalaska sent 13 students to compete. While some changes in regulations made the competition a little tougher for some local athletes this year, the team brought home a few medals, including one first place trophy.
On Saturday afternoon, the gym was filled with barks and cheers from the crowd as participants prepared for the final event of the three-day competition, the seal hop.
It was Unalaska sophomore Hawaii Maynard-Gumbs’ first competition. Despite being a newcomer, she was hoping to take the top spot in the seal hop event.
“What I usually do should be enough to get me first, based on how far they went last year,” Maynard-Gumbs said as she waited for her turn to compete.
In the seal hop, athletes get on all fours in a plank position and continuously hop across the gym and back — if they make it all the way down. The girls have to keep their arms straight and hop simultaneously on their hands and toes. The boys crouch further down, on their knuckles, tucking their elbows close to their bodies. Athletes can be disqualified for various reasons, like if their stomachs or legs touch the floor.
Overall, Maynard-Gumbs came in second. But she didn’t beat her personal record, or even come close to what she was hoping for in length.
“I'm still really not satisfied with how far I went today,” she said shortly after she finished the event. “I could have gone way more and I feel like I could have beaten the record.”
She says the judging changed a little this year and seemed somewhat more rigorous than what she was expecting. Not only do the athletes have to hop at the same time with their hands and feet without pausing, they’re butts aren’t supposed to go too high or too low. They get three chances before being stopped by the referees. That’s what got Maynard-Gumbs in this event.
“A lot of people [are] saying it is stricter,” she said.
Maynard-Gumbs said the structure of the event changed, with coaches now joining the athletes on the floor to communicate violations to the athletes.
Shortly after the seal hop, Maynard-Gumbs was already thinking about next year. She said she’s hoping to go faster and work on keeping her hips as low as she can.
Sophomore Deklan Nettleton took gold in the wrist carry last year. That’s an event where athletes hook their wrists on a stick above them and tuck their legs up toward their stomachs as their teammates carry them across the gym. All of their body weight is on one wrist.
This weekend, Nettleton came in second with his team of carriers, Rogue Henning and Andrew Toledo.
“The difference for me was they changed the court a little bit, and we trained all season for a little wider and smoother court,” he said. “And last year I got first with about 440 and this year I got second with 330 so it wasn't that much of a difference, but I felt pretty strong about it, and second is still pretty good for me.”
Nettleton also wrestles, runs cross country and plays basketball, but he said the NYO competition is different from a lot of the other sports.
“When you're going against people, they try to help you, and they make you feel like they want you to beat them,” Nettleton said. “And it's more like you're competing for yourself and against yourself than competing against other people, and it's a really loving community.”
Unalaska has a small team this year with just 13 athletes. Head coach for the girls Genee Shaishnikoff said she’s not sure why participation is down this year. She said some kids just get burnt out after all their other sports and want to get outside as the weather is getting better. Still, she said it’s a pretty young team and she hopes they all return next year.
The Raiders didn't come home with as many accolades as last year, but they did bring home a gold medal in the Dene stick pull with Deserette Quebrar’s first place award. Lucy Bagley also tied for fifth in the one-foot high kick, and Khoi “Sonny” Nguyen also placed fifth in the Inuit stick pull.
