Eat year heart out Utah, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Vermont (among others); the top two skiing programs in the country hail from the Centennial State.
The University of Denver on Saturday brought home the school’s record 23rd national championship in skiing thanks to a strong finish by the nordic team on the final day of competition.
The Pioneers maintained their first place standing heading into the fourth day of competition and held off a charging University of Colorado team that rose from fourth to second on the final day of competition.
“I am so incredibly proud of the young men and women on our team,” head nordic coach Dave Stewart said via the school’s athletics department. “They came into this championship knowing that it would take nothing less than their best to win a title for DU, and they did just that. The conditions were challenging today with rising temperatures through the morning, but everyone brought such composure and focus to the race that I believe the tough conditions worked in our favor.
“Alpine set us up with a lead that we were able to build on, so this was a balanced team win with both alpine and nordic adding almost the same points to the team total. Alpine has had a dominant season and it was very special to put it all together this week at NCAA’s.”
Denver earned 15 All-Americans during the four-day competition, the most among the 21 competing schools. Colorado was second with 13, although CU took the edge in first-teamers, nine to five.
“For the whole duration of the championship, there was a string of unfortunate events for us, but in the end there was a surprise,” CU head coach Richard Rokos said. “The women had a fantastic Nordic race. It was a surprise for all of us.
“We were behind the 8-ball from the start with our troubles in the giant slalom,” he added. “It would have made today even more interesting if we’d have had those lost points the way the Nordics performed. Regardless, congratulations to DU, they did what they had to do.”
Colorado, who won in 2014-15, stumbled out of the gates on Wednesday, with two of their top men’s giant slalomers finished 30th and DNF. Junior Mads Stroem easily won the men’s 10-kilometer freestyle race on Thursday, helping kickstart a Buffs rally that would ultimately see them finish 76 points behind the Pioneers.
Denver, meanwhile, made a surge of their own on Friday after coming in to the third day of competition in third place behind Utah and Montana State.
The Pioneers’ Erik Read won the individual men’s slalom championship, while Monica Hübner took third and Kristine Haugen earned sixth on the women’s side to surge Denver into the lead heading into the final day.
On Saturday the Pioneers were led by sophomore Linn Eriksen with her dominating first place finish in the Women’s 15 Classical race and junior Moritz Madlener, who finished second overall in the Men’s 20K Classical race, just 1.7 seconds behind the first place finisher.
Denver (23) extended its national championship lead on Colorado (20), who had climbed one closer with last year’s victory. Utah is a distant third with 10.
The two Colorado schools have claimed eight of the last 10 national titles and 10 of the last 12.
The race for the best ski program in the country is ongoing, but there’s little doubt that the best ski state in the nation in Colorado.
Image credit: DenverPioneers.com
