RUMFORD, Maine -- Colorado's Ove Erik Tronvoll and Magnus Ericksson finished 1-2 in the men's 20-kilometer cross-country race Saturday, sending the Buffaloes to their second straight NCAA skiing title.
Onni Odegard took third in the women's 10-kilometer event, clinching the victory as Colorado finished with 650 points.Denver, one of the pre-championship favorites, finished second with 636 points after starting the day in fifth place, 85 points behind. The Pioneers leapfrogged Utah, Vermont and Dartmouth as Britta Wienand won the women's 10-kilometer race to lead all six Denver racers into the top 10.
Vermont was third with 600 points.
Utah, which started the day in second place, 19.5 points behind Colorado, finished fourth with 578.5 points. New Mexico was fifth with 572, and Dartmouth sixth with 539.
Although the other two Colorado women finished 28th and 39th, its third man, Jorgen Aukland, wound up eighth.
Tronvoll, a senior from Norway, was ill at last year's championships and fared poorly, and he finished a disappointing fifth in Thursday's 10K freestyle.
Tronvoll finished in 56 minutes, 17 seconds, far ahead of Ericksson (57;53.2).
Utah twins Rune and Frode Kollerud, who finished 1-2 in the 10K, had to stop during Saturday's race to change the wax on their skis, which takes about a minute. They finished 12th and 17th.
The Utah team had put on hard wax for hard snow on the cloudy day at Black Mountain, but the sun came out 15 minutes before the race and softened the snow.
"A lot of guys were panic waxing, but we decided to stay with it," Utah's third skier, Pat Casey, said. "It's a judgment call. "It's too bad it came down to a waxing race. If it was a skiing race, we would have been better."
Utah coach Pat Miller said the Utes didn't have time to make the change.
"It's just one of those unfortunate things, it's part of cross-country ski racing," he said.
He was not sure if Utah could have caught Colorado anyway, but it probably would have meant a higher finish in the standings.
WORLD CUP NORDIC: Bjarte Engen Vik of Norway clinched the Nordic combined World Cup by winning a 15-kilometer cross country race Saturday in Oslo, Norway, beating Finland's Hannu Manninen by 12.5 seconds.
Vik had a 29-second advantage after winning the jumping with jumps at 112.5 and 122 meters and 237.4 points Friday.