DEH CHO - Gold, silver and bronze are all medal colours the Deh Cho can celebrate as a result of the performance of 12 young athletes at the Arctic Winter Games.

Athletes from the region returned from Grande Prairie, Alta., where the games were held between March 6 to 13, with six individual medals and six team medals. Overall, Team NWT took third place at the games with a total of 31 gold, 28 silver and 48 bronze medals.

Blair Kotchea of Fort Liard reloads her rifle during one of her snowshoe biathlon races at the Arctic Winter Games in Grande Prairie, Alta. Kotchea helped her team to a silver medal in the 3x2-km junior mix relay race. - Chris Puglia/NNSL photo

Madison Pilling was the Deh Cho's golden girl.

Pilling, from Fort Simpson, won three gold individual medals in speed skating and helped the juvenile team to another gold in the 2,000 metre relay. She also won a silver medal.

Pilling, 13, was chosen for the honour of being the territory's flag bearer at the closing ceremonies because of her success in multiple sports, according to the team's mission office. At the 2008 games Pilling won a spot on the podium in snowshoe biathlon.

"I was really proud of myself," said Pilling about this year's performance.

Pilling views her first race, the 777-metre as her best.

"I was fresh. I had fresh legs, I was ready for it," she said.

Pilling said she stayed focused, was the first out of the blocks and kept her lead through the seven laps to finish with a time of 1:27.75. The most challenging race was the 1,000-m, where she placed second.

"I knew going in my teammates were good in the 1,000," she said.

Pilling was the second off the start but used extra energy to make an outside pass and take the lead. She held that position for the next eight loops until she tripped coming out of a corner on the final loop, a mistake that allowed a teammate to slip by her and cross the finish line first.

The Deh Cho's other gold medallist is Justin Lacorne of Fort Providence, who helped propel the open men's Dene games team to the lead in hand games. Trevor Bonnetrouge of Fort Providence and Carson Mantla of Fort Simpson also represented the region in Dene games.

Mantla took silver in the junior male snow snake and both Mantla and Bonnetrouge helped their team to bronze in pole push. Bonnetrouge placed third in the overall in the junior male Dene games division.

"I feel really good about my performance," said Bonnetrouge.

This was Bonnetrouge's first time at the Games. At 18-years-old Bonnetrouge said he decided to enter because he'll soon be too old. He now wishes that he'd started sooner.

"It was awesome, a good experience," he said.

In addition to hand games, snow snake and poll push Dene Games also involves stick pull and finger pull. Bonnetrouge's favourite event was hand games where the NWT junior team placed sixth.

In Fort Liard, silver is the colour of victory. Blair Kotchea, the hamlet's only representative, helped the junior team take silver in the snowshoe biathlon 3x2-km relay mix race. Kotchea also had some near brushes with medals taking fourth in the biathlon snowshoe 5.0-km distance junior female and fifth in the 5.0-km individual and the 3.0-km sprint.

Kotchea, 15, who was also competing at the Games for the first time said that she enjoyed the experience, especially being in a race setting for the first time.

"At first I found it kind of intimidating," she said.

After a practice run, Kotchea said she felt more comfortable. To prepare for the games Kotchea spent six months in training. In the weeks leading up to the games she did a run in her snowshoes or did target shooting every other day.

Kotchea said she was happy with her performance and hopes to return to the Games in two years either in snowshoe or ski biathlon.

- with files from Chris Puglia