Athena drills 23.85 g/t Au over 5 m at Laird, Red Lake

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 19, 2026) - Athena Gold Corporation (CSE: ATHA) (OTCQB: AHNRF) ("Athena" or the "Company") is pleased to announce a near-surface, high-grade, grassroots gold discovery at its flagship Laird Lake project ("Laird" or the "Project") in Ontario's Red Lake Gold District. Hole LL-26-006A returned 23.85 g/t Au over 5 m, from 21.0 m to 26.0 m , defining the newly named Scooby Zone .

Highlights from Maiden Drill Program – Laird Lake Project, Ontario

Hole LL-26-006A ("Hole 6") returned a new, high-grade, near-surface discovery (Scooby Zone): 23.85 g/t Au over 5 m from 21 downhole , including: 62.9 g/t Au over 1 m from 21 m, and

54.1 g/t Au over 1 m from 23 m.

Scooby Zone has also been intersected in a large step out in hole LL-26-008 at a vertical depth of approximately 400m below LL-26-006A returning 8.03 g/t Au over 0.62 m within a broader zone of 1.37 g/t over 4.5 m (from 609.5 m).

Scooby Zone occurs proximal to Balmer-Confederation contact, a well-studied structure known to host most of the gold production in the Red Lake Gold District; the Balmer-Confederation contact has been traced for greater than 10 km at Laird.

Anomalous gold encountered in other drillholes testing the GBZ Zone.

Discovery generated from a modest nine-hole, 5,134-metre maiden program on greenfield ground with limited historical drilling; several targets remain to be tested.

The follow-up program planned this upcoming Fall/Winter to include: ~10,000 m of drilling testing the extensions of the Scooby Zone , in addition to ground truthing historic trenches near LL-26-001 and the Nemo Zone.

" This is a genuine grassroots discovery on ground that has still seen such little drilling, " said Koby Kushner, President and CEO of Athena. " Hitting nearly 24 grams over five metres , this close to surface, in our first program validates the t