The Colorado Buffaloes ended Utah’s reign atop the college skiing mountain, edging out the Utes by two total points — 569.5 to 567.5 — to deny Utah its fifth consecutive skiing national championship.
After a solid first three days that featured two individual titles for Utah — Mikkel Solbakken winning the men’ giant slalom and Sydney Palmer-Leger winning the women’s 7.5K freestyle — the Utes had a 51-point lead over the Buffaloes entering the final day of competition — the mass start 20K classic.
Palmer-Leger finsihed in third place for the Utes in the women’s 20K classic, while Karianne Dengerud finished in 17th and Nina Schamberger did not finish due to injury, totaling 48 points for the Utes.
Colorado’s Hanna Abrahamsson and Anna-Maria Dietze finished fourth and fifth in the women’s 20K, while Weronika Kaleta finished in ninth place to score 82 total points for Colorado and cut Utah’s lead to 17 points entering the men’s 20K.
On the men’s side for Utah, Tom Mancini, Joe Davies and Brian Bushey finished in sixth, seventh and eighth place, respectively, for 75 points, but a 94-point showing from Colorado put the Buffaloes over the top.
“It happens this way in sport sometimes,” director of skiing Fredrik Landstedt said in a school news release. “We did our best and everyone skied great.
“We started the week off really well and kept it going on the (freestyle) day. I thought the slalom also went very well. Today, (Colorado) was just crushing it. They had probably their best day ever. But we still had an amazing day and came up just a little short. That happens sometimes.”
Colorado’s Magnus Boee finished in first and Will Koch came in third, with Johannes Flaaten crossing the finish line in 11th place. That performance was enough for the Buffaloes to complete the comeback and win the national championship on their home mountain.
It’s the first skiing national championship for the Buffaloes since 2015.