Saturday, March 9
Steamboat Springs, Colo.
Women: 10 AM / Men Noon
University of Colorado
vs
20K Classic
Photo by: Ashton Scott
Buffs Claim 21st National Ski Championship With Epic Comeback
March 09, 2024 | Skiing
NOTE: CU Historian and Emeritus SID David Plati assisted with this report.
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Colorado's Magnus Boee won the individual national championship in the 20K classic race and all six Buffaloes finished in the top 11 Saturday, fueling a comeback for the ages and giving CU its 21st National Championship in skiing. The Buffs came back from a 51-point deficit for the title, the program's first championship in nine years, and successfully pulled off the second-largest final-day comeback in NCAA Ski history.
Down to the four-time defending champion Utah Utes entering the day, the CU women took to the course first and perhaps motivated by a subpar day on Thursday, Hanna Abrahamsson finished fourth, Anna-Maria Dietze fifth and Weronika Kaleta ninth, enabling CU to cut that 51-point lead down to 17. CU also slipped behind Denver after the slalom races, and this is the first time in the coed era of the championship a team moved from third to first on the final day.
That set up a battle of the two of the best men's Nordic team's in the nation, and they didn't disappoint. Boee won his third individual NCAA Championship, joining an elite list in CU history, and Will Koch took third and Johannes Flaaten 11th while Utah went sixth, seventh, and eighth, and when the math was calculated after Flaaten crossed the finish line, CU had outscored Utah 94-75 to win the race and more importantly finished with 569.5 points in the meet, just two points ahead of Utah's total of 567.5.
"It feels surreal," CU head coach Jana Weinberger, who became just the first female head coach at CU to win a championship and second female coach credited with a ski national championship, said. "That was very close, very nerve racking, everybody did what we had to do. We came back from our not-so-great day on Thursday and it turned out well."
Weinberger has now been a part of three of the biggest comebacks in NCAA skiing history, all in different roles. In 2006, CU was down 52 points after the first day and 30.5 at the midpoint, which before the 57-point deficit this week was the largest deficit overcome at the halfway point of the championships in the coed era. Weinberger won both women's Nordic individual NCAA Championships and led the Buffs to the title in 2006. In 2013 as an assistant Nordic coach, the Buffs came back from the largest final-day deficit in history, 54 points, and now in her first season as the head coach (she was interim coach for the majority of the 2023 season and named the head coach after the season), her Buffaloes orchestrated the largest midpoint and second largest final-day comeback in history.
"I feel like the emotions are higher today then they were when I was an athlete back in 2006 or as an assistant coach," Weinberger said. "I'm just really glad that Anna-Maria and Magnus, who have been here for five years now, get to leave with a ring, it's been such a drought for us."
That drought, nine years in the making, is the second-longest in program history, behind an 11-year drought from 1960-71 before the Buffs rattled off an NCAA record eight straight championships, and just ahead of an eight-year drought that former coach Richard Rokos inherited from 1982-90. Like Rokos, Weinberger wins in her first year at the helm, and is the third such coach to do so, joining Tim Hinderman, who won the 1979 title taking over for Bill Marolt.
Weinberger also joins Hinderman and Marolt as former members of the ski team to lead the team to a national championship as the head coach. Marolt won four individual titles, but Weinberger and Hinderman are the only two to win a national championship as an athlete and head coach and Weinberger is the first to win as an athlete, assistant coach and now head coach.
It's also the closest final score in the coed era of the championship, just surpassing the 1998 championship when the Buffs topped Utah by just 2.5 points, 654-651.5. It's the closest since an actual tie between Colorado and Dartmouth back in 1976 and technically it's the fifth-closest NCAA Ski Championship of all time, although aside from the tie in 1976, the other three happened in the 1960s when the scoring system was dramatically different and based on a percentage behind the leaders. In 1958, Dartmouth topped Denver by .6, in 1967 Denver beat Wyoming by .8 points and in 1964, Denver beat Dartmouth by 1.4 points.
In the current scoring system, it's hard to explain just how close a two-point difference over eight races and 24 competitors actually is in reality, which is seconds or fractions thereof, but here are a few examples:
"We had nothing to lose," Boee said. "The DU guys were pushing it fast but I wasn't struggling to keep up. I looked back and saw Joe (Davies), the best Utah skier, was dropping off, I was literally saying 'they're dropping, let's go.' We were rotating pulling and trying to widen the gap."
At the 5K mark, Boee had the lead and Koch was fourth behind the lead pack. Utah was fifth, seventh and ninth and Flaaten was 11th. If the race ended there, CU would've outscored Utah 91-76, but come up one point short in the team standings. On the second lap, Boee took matters into his own hand and pushed off the front of the pack.
"The second lap, I just kept pushing and widening the gap then all of the sudden, Denver was dropping back," Boee said. "From then I never looked back and kept pushing. Once I started getting a big gap. All you need to do is not pull up, keep focusing on your technique, don't think about victories or anything, just think about your skiing. You have two laps left, one lap left, maintaining the lead. That's all I did and I had a great day, great skis, it was just an incredibly good day to have a good day."
With Boee out in front, Koch had passed one of the DU skiers and at the 10K mark, he was third, but Utah had moved up to fourth and fifth and despite Flaaten moving up to ninth, Utah's third skier was eighth and if the race ended there, CU would've outscored Utah 96-83 and lost the meet by four points.
On the third lap, Boee and Koch held their positions and Flaaten was falling off trailing back that consisted of the three Utes, Drolet and Hagenbuch. At the 15K mark, Drolet and Hagenbuch had moved ahead of the three Utes and Flaaten was in 10th place, which would've made the score 95-75 and the Buffs were then up three points in the overall team race.
Flaaten, meanwhile, was in a new battle with two other skiers for 10th-12th positions on the final lap. Boee cruised to victory, Koch held off both Drolet and Hagenbuch, who had pulled away a bit from the Utah trio. Flaaten finished one spot lower but otherwise the 15K positions held for a two-point CU victory.
"I'm not shocked, I'm just super happy we made it and it actually happened," Boee said. "It's one thing to be capable of doing it, it's another to go out and do it. We win as a team and lose as a team. It's never about blaming, but there are times we all know we could've done better. We've had a few championships the past few years where there were some what-if's,and to be honest, I thought we may have another one. But as a team we mobilized, ended up on top and it worked."
Boee's race is one of storybook legend. In his fifth season having finished second twice at the NCAA Championships, Boee picked up his first win of the season and becomes the first skier in CU history to win a race in five different seasons, taking until that final race in his final season of eligibility to make that a reality.
"This whole year, I knew I had it in me, but the skis weren't good one day or I just didn't have the shape that day," Boee said. "So just getting both right on the last day of national championships is a dream come true."
UP NEXT: That's a wrap on the 2024 season, during which this group of skiers became the fourth in CU history to win the regular season RMISA Championship, the RMISA Champions and the NCAA Championship, joining the 2006, 2011 and 2015 teams.
WHAT IT MEANS: The Buffs have been so close for so long, in the nine years since last winning the title, the Buffs finished second five times. This group will be remembered for finally breaking through and beating Utah, which had looked unbeatable for the better part of the last six years, and doing so with one of the best stories of any team in CU history. All 21 national championship teams have special skiers, special stories, and this group is no different.
SCORING BREAKDOWN: Here is how the 2024 championship broke down; the Buffaloes were first overall in women's team scoring, Nordic scoring, and Nordic men's scoring and were second overall in women's alpine scoring and overall men's scoring. CU won the women's giant slalom, men's slalom and both classic races Saturday as a team. CU scored the second most points on the first day for GS, third most on the freestyle day, second most in slalom and the most in classic.
MEN'S TEAM SCORING: Utah 317, Colorado 284, Denver 255, Dartmouth 198, Montana State 144, Vermont 115, New Hampshire 107.
WOMEN'S TEAM SCORING: Colorado 275½; Utah 250½, Denver 236, Dartmouth 201, Montana State 185, Vermont 185, Alaska-Anchorage 172.
ALPINE POINT LEADERS: Utah 286½, Denver 283, Colorado 275½, Alaska-Anchorage 172, Vermont 153, Montana State 146, Dartmouth 141, Westminster 136. Men's Leader: Utah 152 (2nd—Denver 124). Women's Leader: Denver 159 (2nd—Colorado 157.5).
NORDIC POINT LEADERS: Colorado 295, Utah 281, Dartmouth 258, Denver 208, Montana State 183, Alaska-Fairbanks 175, Vermont 147.
Men's Leader: Colorado 177 (2nd—Utah 165). Women's Leader: Dartmouth 141 (2nd—Vermont 123)
CRACKING THE TOP: NCAA West schools have won 27 of the last 29 championships, as the skiing elite fraternity remains hard to crack; only seven different schools have claimed the title since the sport went coed in 1983: Utah (14 titles), Denver (10), Colorado (9), Vermont (5), Dartmouth (1), New Mexico (1) and Wyoming (1). But since the '67 title meet, Colorado (29 first or second place finishes: 18 wins, 11 runner-ups), Utah (28; 15, 13), Vermont (23; 6, 18) and Denver (20; 14, 6) have dominated college skiing over these 57 seasons. Only three other schools, Wyoming (two wins and four seconds), Dartmouth (two wins, two seconds) and New Mexico (one title and two seconds) have been able to crack the top two in this span (notes: adds to 58 titles and 56 runner-up finishes since CU and Dartmouth shared '76 crown; no 2020 team championship due to COVID-19 pandemic).
CU ALL-TIME: The Buffaloes have won 21 national championships in skiing: 11 men's (1959-60-72-73-74-75-76-77-78-79-82), eight coed (1991-95-98-99-2006-11-13-15-24) and one woman's (1982, AIAW). The 20 NCAA titles by Colorado remain the second-most, behind the University of Denver's 24; after DU and CU (43 combined in NCAA competition), Utah has won 15, Vermont 6, Dartmouth 3, Wyoming 2 and New Mexico 1.
INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS: The Buffs had four individual champions this year (Magdalena Luczak in the GS and slalom, Magnus Boee in the classical, Filip Wahlqvist in the slalom), as the eight individual champions came from just three different schools: Colorado 4, Dartmouth 2 and Utah 2. Colorado leads all-time with 105 individual NCAA titles, topping Denver (96), Utah (86), Vermont (71), Dartmouth (44), Wyoming (19), New Mexico (18) and Middlebury (11). The Buffs have had two or more individual champions 34 times (three or more 16 times), and now have had six occasions when CU skiers topped the podium four times.
The other five occasions when CU won four or more individual titles were: 1960, John Dendahl (skimeister, Nordic, cross country) and Dave Butts (downhill); in 1963, Buddy Werner (alpine combined, downhill), Bill Marolt (downhill) and Jimmie Heuga (slalom); in 2006, current CU head coach Jana Rehemaa (classical, freestyle), Kit Richmond (freestyle) and Lucie Zikova (downhill); in 2008, Maria Grevsgaard (freestyle, classical) and Lucie Zikova (giant slalom, slalom) and in 2017, Petra Hyncicova (freestyle, classical) and David Ketterer (giant slalom, slalom). CU has had at least one individual NCAA champion in 33 of the last 42 years.
• Luczak, with her 2022 GS win previously, and Boee, with a sweep of the Nordic titles in 2021, become the 12th and 13th CU athletes to win at least three NCAA individual titles (seven skiers, six in cross country and track).
HEAD COACH JANA WEINBERGER: Weinberger wrapped up her second season as head coach/director of skiing for the Buffaloes, having guided CU to a second place finish in 2023 after taking over the program on an interim basis just two months earlier in January; she was named to the position full-time last May. Her teams have won four events, including this year's NCAA and RMISA Championships, with two runner-up finishes and three third-place efforts. Five individuals under her guidance have won NCAA individual crowns, with 19 skiers earning a combined 28 All-America honors (14 first-team).
LEARFIELD DIRECTORS' CUP: Colorado picked up 100 points in the Learfield Director's Cup Standings, jumping from 46th place into a tie for 17th with 224 total points; skiing as always is the first NCAA winter championship completed (indoor track finishes up Saturday night). Utah moved from 77th to 29th (178), giving the Pac-12 seven schools in the top 30. North Carolina led the final fall standings with 372.5 points, just ahead of Stanford (371); Texas (344), Notre Dame (343) and Tennessee (292.5) round out the top five.
LOOKING AHEAD: Seven of the 12 student-athletes who competed for the Buffaloes in the 2024 championships are scheduled to return for the 2025 season; the only exceptions being two five-time letterwinners Magnus Boee and Anna-Maria Dietze (Nordic), Weronika Kaleta (Nordic), and Denise Dingsleder and Julia Toiviainen (alpine) who both lettered as graduate transfers from Westminster in their one season at CU. Four of the 12 who skied for CU here were freshmen.
FUTURE SITES: The 2025 meet will return to the east with Dartmouth College set to host for the first time since 2003; Montana State will host the 2026 event.
WOMEN'S NORDIC NOTES:
WOMEN'S 20K CLASSIC (39 Collegiate Finishers): 1. Jasmine Drolet, DAR, 1:02:38.2; 2. Haley Brewster, UVM, 1:02:41.5; 3. Sydney Palmer-Leger, UU, 1:02:41.8; 4. Hanna Abrahamsson, CU, 1:02:46.5; 5. Anna-Maria Dietze, CU, 1:02:51.1; 6. Kendall Kramer, UAF, 1:02:51.5; 7. Tilde Baangman, MSU, 1:03:03.8; 8. Mariel Pulles, UAF, 1:03:42.8; 9. Weronika Kaleta, CU, 1:04:04.8; 10. Astrid Stav, UAA, 1:04:04.9.
MEN'S 20K CLASSIC (40 Collegiate Finishers): 1. Magnus Boee, CU, 55:38.0; 2. Florian Knopf, DU, 55:42.1; 3. Will Koch, CU, 55:55.9; 4. Remi Drolet, HAR, 56:06.1; 5. John Hagenbuch, DAR, 56:06.3; 6. Tom Mancini, UU, 56:21.1; 7. Joe Davies, UU, 56:21.5; 8. Brian Bushey, UU, 56:22.9; 9. Florian Winker, MSU, 56:45.4; 10. Krystof Zatloukal, DU, 56:51.1. Other CU Finisher: Johannes Flaaten, 56:59.9.
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Colorado's Magnus Boee won the individual national championship in the 20K classic race and all six Buffaloes finished in the top 11 Saturday, fueling a comeback for the ages and giving CU its 21st National Championship in skiing. The Buffs came back from a 51-point deficit for the title, the program's first championship in nine years, and successfully pulled off the second-largest final-day comeback in NCAA Ski history.
Down to the four-time defending champion Utah Utes entering the day, the CU women took to the course first and perhaps motivated by a subpar day on Thursday, Hanna Abrahamsson finished fourth, Anna-Maria Dietze fifth and Weronika Kaleta ninth, enabling CU to cut that 51-point lead down to 17. CU also slipped behind Denver after the slalom races, and this is the first time in the coed era of the championship a team moved from third to first on the final day.
That set up a battle of the two of the best men's Nordic team's in the nation, and they didn't disappoint. Boee won his third individual NCAA Championship, joining an elite list in CU history, and Will Koch took third and Johannes Flaaten 11th while Utah went sixth, seventh, and eighth, and when the math was calculated after Flaaten crossed the finish line, CU had outscored Utah 94-75 to win the race and more importantly finished with 569.5 points in the meet, just two points ahead of Utah's total of 567.5.
"It feels surreal," CU head coach Jana Weinberger, who became just the first female head coach at CU to win a championship and second female coach credited with a ski national championship, said. "That was very close, very nerve racking, everybody did what we had to do. We came back from our not-so-great day on Thursday and it turned out well."
Weinberger has now been a part of three of the biggest comebacks in NCAA skiing history, all in different roles. In 2006, CU was down 52 points after the first day and 30.5 at the midpoint, which before the 57-point deficit this week was the largest deficit overcome at the halfway point of the championships in the coed era. Weinberger won both women's Nordic individual NCAA Championships and led the Buffs to the title in 2006. In 2013 as an assistant Nordic coach, the Buffs came back from the largest final-day deficit in history, 54 points, and now in her first season as the head coach (she was interim coach for the majority of the 2023 season and named the head coach after the season), her Buffaloes orchestrated the largest midpoint and second largest final-day comeback in history.
"I feel like the emotions are higher today then they were when I was an athlete back in 2006 or as an assistant coach," Weinberger said. "I'm just really glad that Anna-Maria and Magnus, who have been here for five years now, get to leave with a ring, it's been such a drought for us."
That drought, nine years in the making, is the second-longest in program history, behind an 11-year drought from 1960-71 before the Buffs rattled off an NCAA record eight straight championships, and just ahead of an eight-year drought that former coach Richard Rokos inherited from 1982-90. Like Rokos, Weinberger wins in her first year at the helm, and is the third such coach to do so, joining Tim Hinderman, who won the 1979 title taking over for Bill Marolt.
Weinberger also joins Hinderman and Marolt as former members of the ski team to lead the team to a national championship as the head coach. Marolt won four individual titles, but Weinberger and Hinderman are the only two to win a national championship as an athlete and head coach and Weinberger is the first to win as an athlete, assistant coach and now head coach.
It's also the closest final score in the coed era of the championship, just surpassing the 1998 championship when the Buffs topped Utah by just 2.5 points, 654-651.5. It's the closest since an actual tie between Colorado and Dartmouth back in 1976 and technically it's the fifth-closest NCAA Ski Championship of all time, although aside from the tie in 1976, the other three happened in the 1960s when the scoring system was dramatically different and based on a percentage behind the leaders. In 1958, Dartmouth topped Denver by .6, in 1967 Denver beat Wyoming by .8 points and in 1964, Denver beat Dartmouth by 1.4 points.
In the current scoring system, it's hard to explain just how close a two-point difference over eight races and 24 competitors actually is in reality, which is seconds or fractions thereof, but here are a few examples:
- In Wednesday's men's GS race, Filip Wahlqvist finished eighth, just two-hundredths ahead of 10th place, which would've been a tie with Utah, or six-hundredths slower, he would've finished 11th and the Buffs would've lost. Similarly, Etienne Mazellier was in 12th place, just one-hundredth of a second from 13th, another point lower.
- In Wednesday's women's GS race, Magdalena Luczak won the race by 1.18 seconds, but if she had finished second, the Buffs lose. If Denise Dingsleder, who tied for second place, was one-hundredth slower that would've cost the Buffs 1.5 points. If Julia Toiviainen hadn't thrown down the fifth-fastest second run to move up from 17th to 11th, the Buffs lose.
- In Thursday's men's freestyle race, if Will Koch is four seconds slower, the Buffs tie with Utah. If former Buff Fredrik Nilsen, who finished eighth, beats the Buffs sitting in sixth or seventh, the Buffs lose.
- In Thursday's women's freestyle race, despite both Hanna Abrahamsson and Weronika Kaleta having their worst race of the season, they scored 11 points. If either had faltered more and not scored, the Buffs lose.
- In Friday's women's slalom, if Luczak doesn't win the race, which she did by 13-hundredths, the Buffs lose. If Dingsleder (moved up from 22nd to 18th on the second run) or Toiviainen (moved up from 28th to 22nd on the second run) don't improve that much, the Buffs lose.
- In Friday's men's slalom, if Wahlqvist doesn't win the race, the Buffs don't win. If Ryder Sarchett, who didn't finish the GS race, hadn't thrown down the fourth-fastest second run to move up from 18th to 8th, a 10 point swing, the Buffs lose.
- And finally Saturday, if in the women's race the women's team didn't completely rebound from Thursday's race to finish fourth, fifth and ninth, the Buffs lose. If Kaleta and Dietze don't win sprints at the end of their 20K loops and each finish one spot loser, the Buffs lose.
- And in the men's race, if either Boee didn't win, or if Koch was caught by Harvard's Remi Drolet or Dartmouth's John Hagenbuch, the Buffs lose. If those two don't pass all three Utah skiers, that finished in succession behind them, the Buffs lose. And finally, if Flaaten doesn't finish 11th, if he's caught by two more skiers, the Buffs tie.
"We had nothing to lose," Boee said. "The DU guys were pushing it fast but I wasn't struggling to keep up. I looked back and saw Joe (Davies), the best Utah skier, was dropping off, I was literally saying 'they're dropping, let's go.' We were rotating pulling and trying to widen the gap."
At the 5K mark, Boee had the lead and Koch was fourth behind the lead pack. Utah was fifth, seventh and ninth and Flaaten was 11th. If the race ended there, CU would've outscored Utah 91-76, but come up one point short in the team standings. On the second lap, Boee took matters into his own hand and pushed off the front of the pack.
"The second lap, I just kept pushing and widening the gap then all of the sudden, Denver was dropping back," Boee said. "From then I never looked back and kept pushing. Once I started getting a big gap. All you need to do is not pull up, keep focusing on your technique, don't think about victories or anything, just think about your skiing. You have two laps left, one lap left, maintaining the lead. That's all I did and I had a great day, great skis, it was just an incredibly good day to have a good day."
With Boee out in front, Koch had passed one of the DU skiers and at the 10K mark, he was third, but Utah had moved up to fourth and fifth and despite Flaaten moving up to ninth, Utah's third skier was eighth and if the race ended there, CU would've outscored Utah 96-83 and lost the meet by four points.
On the third lap, Boee and Koch held their positions and Flaaten was falling off trailing back that consisted of the three Utes, Drolet and Hagenbuch. At the 15K mark, Drolet and Hagenbuch had moved ahead of the three Utes and Flaaten was in 10th place, which would've made the score 95-75 and the Buffs were then up three points in the overall team race.
Flaaten, meanwhile, was in a new battle with two other skiers for 10th-12th positions on the final lap. Boee cruised to victory, Koch held off both Drolet and Hagenbuch, who had pulled away a bit from the Utah trio. Flaaten finished one spot lower but otherwise the 15K positions held for a two-point CU victory.
"I'm not shocked, I'm just super happy we made it and it actually happened," Boee said. "It's one thing to be capable of doing it, it's another to go out and do it. We win as a team and lose as a team. It's never about blaming, but there are times we all know we could've done better. We've had a few championships the past few years where there were some what-if's,and to be honest, I thought we may have another one. But as a team we mobilized, ended up on top and it worked."
Boee's race is one of storybook legend. In his fifth season having finished second twice at the NCAA Championships, Boee picked up his first win of the season and becomes the first skier in CU history to win a race in five different seasons, taking until that final race in his final season of eligibility to make that a reality.
"This whole year, I knew I had it in me, but the skis weren't good one day or I just didn't have the shape that day," Boee said. "So just getting both right on the last day of national championships is a dream come true."
UP NEXT: That's a wrap on the 2024 season, during which this group of skiers became the fourth in CU history to win the regular season RMISA Championship, the RMISA Champions and the NCAA Championship, joining the 2006, 2011 and 2015 teams.
WHAT IT MEANS: The Buffs have been so close for so long, in the nine years since last winning the title, the Buffs finished second five times. This group will be remembered for finally breaking through and beating Utah, which had looked unbeatable for the better part of the last six years, and doing so with one of the best stories of any team in CU history. All 21 national championship teams have special skiers, special stories, and this group is no different.
SCORING BREAKDOWN: Here is how the 2024 championship broke down; the Buffaloes were first overall in women's team scoring, Nordic scoring, and Nordic men's scoring and were second overall in women's alpine scoring and overall men's scoring. CU won the women's giant slalom, men's slalom and both classic races Saturday as a team. CU scored the second most points on the first day for GS, third most on the freestyle day, second most in slalom and the most in classic.
MEN'S TEAM SCORING: Utah 317, Colorado 284, Denver 255, Dartmouth 198, Montana State 144, Vermont 115, New Hampshire 107.
WOMEN'S TEAM SCORING: Colorado 275½; Utah 250½, Denver 236, Dartmouth 201, Montana State 185, Vermont 185, Alaska-Anchorage 172.
ALPINE POINT LEADERS: Utah 286½, Denver 283, Colorado 275½, Alaska-Anchorage 172, Vermont 153, Montana State 146, Dartmouth 141, Westminster 136. Men's Leader: Utah 152 (2nd—Denver 124). Women's Leader: Denver 159 (2nd—Colorado 157.5).
NORDIC POINT LEADERS: Colorado 295, Utah 281, Dartmouth 258, Denver 208, Montana State 183, Alaska-Fairbanks 175, Vermont 147.
Men's Leader: Colorado 177 (2nd—Utah 165). Women's Leader: Dartmouth 141 (2nd—Vermont 123)
CRACKING THE TOP: NCAA West schools have won 27 of the last 29 championships, as the skiing elite fraternity remains hard to crack; only seven different schools have claimed the title since the sport went coed in 1983: Utah (14 titles), Denver (10), Colorado (9), Vermont (5), Dartmouth (1), New Mexico (1) and Wyoming (1). But since the '67 title meet, Colorado (29 first or second place finishes: 18 wins, 11 runner-ups), Utah (28; 15, 13), Vermont (23; 6, 18) and Denver (20; 14, 6) have dominated college skiing over these 57 seasons. Only three other schools, Wyoming (two wins and four seconds), Dartmouth (two wins, two seconds) and New Mexico (one title and two seconds) have been able to crack the top two in this span (notes: adds to 58 titles and 56 runner-up finishes since CU and Dartmouth shared '76 crown; no 2020 team championship due to COVID-19 pandemic).
CU ALL-TIME: The Buffaloes have won 21 national championships in skiing: 11 men's (1959-60-72-73-74-75-76-77-78-79-82), eight coed (1991-95-98-99-2006-11-13-15-24) and one woman's (1982, AIAW). The 20 NCAA titles by Colorado remain the second-most, behind the University of Denver's 24; after DU and CU (43 combined in NCAA competition), Utah has won 15, Vermont 6, Dartmouth 3, Wyoming 2 and New Mexico 1.
INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS: The Buffs had four individual champions this year (Magdalena Luczak in the GS and slalom, Magnus Boee in the classical, Filip Wahlqvist in the slalom), as the eight individual champions came from just three different schools: Colorado 4, Dartmouth 2 and Utah 2. Colorado leads all-time with 105 individual NCAA titles, topping Denver (96), Utah (86), Vermont (71), Dartmouth (44), Wyoming (19), New Mexico (18) and Middlebury (11). The Buffs have had two or more individual champions 34 times (three or more 16 times), and now have had six occasions when CU skiers topped the podium four times.
The other five occasions when CU won four or more individual titles were: 1960, John Dendahl (skimeister, Nordic, cross country) and Dave Butts (downhill); in 1963, Buddy Werner (alpine combined, downhill), Bill Marolt (downhill) and Jimmie Heuga (slalom); in 2006, current CU head coach Jana Rehemaa (classical, freestyle), Kit Richmond (freestyle) and Lucie Zikova (downhill); in 2008, Maria Grevsgaard (freestyle, classical) and Lucie Zikova (giant slalom, slalom) and in 2017, Petra Hyncicova (freestyle, classical) and David Ketterer (giant slalom, slalom). CU has had at least one individual NCAA champion in 33 of the last 42 years.
• Luczak, with her 2022 GS win previously, and Boee, with a sweep of the Nordic titles in 2021, become the 12th and 13th CU athletes to win at least three NCAA individual titles (seven skiers, six in cross country and track).
HEAD COACH JANA WEINBERGER: Weinberger wrapped up her second season as head coach/director of skiing for the Buffaloes, having guided CU to a second place finish in 2023 after taking over the program on an interim basis just two months earlier in January; she was named to the position full-time last May. Her teams have won four events, including this year's NCAA and RMISA Championships, with two runner-up finishes and three third-place efforts. Five individuals under her guidance have won NCAA individual crowns, with 19 skiers earning a combined 28 All-America honors (14 first-team).
- Under her maiden name, Jana Rehemaa, she was a two-time NCAA individual champion skier at CU (2003-06). She was the assistant Nordic coach for 11 years before being named head Nordic coach in 2019, the same year she was inducted into CU's Athletic Hall of Fame.
- Tim Hinderman (1979, men) and Richard Rokos ('91, coed) won NCAA titles in their first years as head coaches, with Weinberger now doing so in her second, but first without the interim title. She joins Hinderman as head coaches who also won NCAA titles as a CU student-athlete, and is the first female head coach to win an NCAA title at Colorado as well as the second in the sport of skiing.
LEARFIELD DIRECTORS' CUP: Colorado picked up 100 points in the Learfield Director's Cup Standings, jumping from 46th place into a tie for 17th with 224 total points; skiing as always is the first NCAA winter championship completed (indoor track finishes up Saturday night). Utah moved from 77th to 29th (178), giving the Pac-12 seven schools in the top 30. North Carolina led the final fall standings with 372.5 points, just ahead of Stanford (371); Texas (344), Notre Dame (343) and Tennessee (292.5) round out the top five.
LOOKING AHEAD: Seven of the 12 student-athletes who competed for the Buffaloes in the 2024 championships are scheduled to return for the 2025 season; the only exceptions being two five-time letterwinners Magnus Boee and Anna-Maria Dietze (Nordic), Weronika Kaleta (Nordic), and Denise Dingsleder and Julia Toiviainen (alpine) who both lettered as graduate transfers from Westminster in their one season at CU. Four of the 12 who skied for CU here were freshmen.
FUTURE SITES: The 2025 meet will return to the east with Dartmouth College set to host for the first time since 2003; Montana State will host the 2026 event.
WOMEN'S NORDIC NOTES:
- Abrahamsson finished fourth to pick up first-team All-America honors, her fifth overall honor and fourth first-team nod. She ends her junior season having finished in the top 20 in 34 of 35 races with 29 top 10 and 23 top five finishes including 12 podiums and two race wins.
- Dietze finished fifth to also earn first-team All-America honors, her third All-America honor and second first-team mention. This was her 50th career start and she finished her career with 49 of those 50 races in the top 20 and 33 in the top 10 with 21 top five, eight podium and two race wins.
- Kaleta finished ninth, her fifth career All-America honor, all second team. She ends her career finishing 35 of 37 races with 33 in the top 20 and 28 in the top 10 including 10 top five performances and four podium appearances.
- Boee ends his career on top, winning his 16th career race. He started 58 races as a Buffalo, finishing 57 in the top 20 and 50 in the top 10 with 40 top five finishes, 30 podium appearances and 16 wins. It's also his 10th career classic win where he has 17 podiums and 23 top five finishes in 29 races.
- Koch finished third, his seventh carer podium and third in classic races. He now has 39 race starts in college with 38 in the top 20, 31 in the top 10 and 11 top five finishes to go with his seven podiums and one race win.
- Flaaten finished 11th and ends his freshman season with 13 finishes all in the top 15 with 12 of the 13 in the top 11, which include eight top 10s and three top five finishes.
WOMEN'S 20K CLASSIC (39 Collegiate Finishers): 1. Jasmine Drolet, DAR, 1:02:38.2; 2. Haley Brewster, UVM, 1:02:41.5; 3. Sydney Palmer-Leger, UU, 1:02:41.8; 4. Hanna Abrahamsson, CU, 1:02:46.5; 5. Anna-Maria Dietze, CU, 1:02:51.1; 6. Kendall Kramer, UAF, 1:02:51.5; 7. Tilde Baangman, MSU, 1:03:03.8; 8. Mariel Pulles, UAF, 1:03:42.8; 9. Weronika Kaleta, CU, 1:04:04.8; 10. Astrid Stav, UAA, 1:04:04.9.
MEN'S 20K CLASSIC (40 Collegiate Finishers): 1. Magnus Boee, CU, 55:38.0; 2. Florian Knopf, DU, 55:42.1; 3. Will Koch, CU, 55:55.9; 4. Remi Drolet, HAR, 56:06.1; 5. John Hagenbuch, DAR, 56:06.3; 6. Tom Mancini, UU, 56:21.1; 7. Joe Davies, UU, 56:21.5; 8. Brian Bushey, UU, 56:22.9; 9. Florian Winker, MSU, 56:45.4; 10. Krystof Zatloukal, DU, 56:51.1. Other CU Finisher: Johannes Flaaten, 56:59.9.