Day two featured the Classical at Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Midway for the first day of cross-country races on Thursday. The Nordic Classical for both men and women was a distance of 7.5-kilometers. It was a day with mixed results for Denver and several Top 10 finishes. Unfortunately, like Alpine yesterday, DU lost one of its top skiers, Eve-Ondine Duchaufour, with a DNF. It still made little difference to the team totals as both Utah and CU continued to build their lead over Denver.
On the men’s side, DU’s Eemil Juntunen finished in 7th, Sondre Oestervold 12th and Yannick Zellweger 20th. Not bad results, good for third in the cumulative team points in the overall standings but the results shifted the team title between Utah and Colorado once again. Both Utah (2) and Colorado (3) placed multiple skiers in the top 10. That was more than enough to build on their team leads over the Pioneers. Utah gobbled up 78.5 points, Colorado 76 and Denver 55. Denver finished fourth in Classical behind CU, Utah and Alaska Anchorage.
DU women struggled in the classical with their lowest team score, 45 points, trailing a red-hot Utah team (88 points), CU (75) and the Pioneers finished 6th in team points. In a surprising twist, DU’s Eve-Ondine Duchaufour was a did-not-finish (DNF) – the only non-finisher in the event. Duchaufour was a standout performer at the recent RMISA Championship when she finished second, trailing only Utah’s Erica Laven (Laven finished second today). Yet another blow to one of DU’s best. That result cancelled out the third-place finish by DU’s outstanding freshman Synne Bollingmo. DU’s Maja Moland cleared the finish line in 20th position.
Denver remained in third in team points, nearly 80 points behind Utah and 30 points ahead of Montana State University.
This is Nordic coach Eliska Albrigtsen’s first season at the helm. She coaxed an outstanding performance out of freshman Synne Bollingmo and I believe she can achieve some great things at DU with some time. An objective view of Nordic events by Denver will take a few years and recruiting classes before we draw firm conclusions about our ability to compete toe-to-toe with CU and Utah. Ultimately, I think we will!
I am looking forward to the return of Alpine slalom tomorrow and a chance for Sara Rask to ski her best. She has been a big contributor to Denver’s Alpine success over the years. I hope she will get rewarded with a good result. While a 25th team title continues to elude Denver, we still have a chance to add more skiing all-Americans to our already long list. Go DU!
Top Photo Courtesy of DU Athletics
Any thought that this team could compete for a title was far fetched. Sara is a great champion, and her GS result was just unfortunate. But to have one of your three women XC skiers to be the only DNF out of the whole field in a short race is mind boggling. Our XC team continues to have baffling results in the NCAA championships. Although there were a couple of OK results today, the trend of shaming this once dominant program on the national stage continues under the new coach.
I admire Tim Healy for his evergreen sense of optimism.
Yet optimism will only take you so far. At some point, you are what your record says you are, and the excuses always seem to pile up for DU for the NCAAs. Some years it’s the wax, other years, it’s the injuries, or the World Cups, or it’s the DNFs.
Bottom line — this once proud DU program that hasn’t been a real NCAA team title contender for almost a decade, now.
It’s been a long decline…
Agreed, Swami. Something is “rotten in the state of Denmark” with the DU nordic program. Frankly, the alpine team collectively over the years should be pissed…. continuously having top finishers, just to have 25th place, 30th place and DNF (!!!) from the XC team. I think the blame should always start (and maybe end) with the coaches. But how much of this falls on Berlo? I know some cutbacks to programs are expected in tough financial times. But does he give a damn about the skiing program?
Yes, what happened to the dominant DU ski program of 2000 to 2018?! It always comes to the coaches and the XC coach is brand new. There’s a lot of DU ski alumni that probably have some opinions on the current state of affairs.
Yes, there are opinions – especially from former alpiners. Having been on the team and winning a NC, it’s frustrating. There were years where we missed out on a NC despite dominating performances from alpine. The decline from 2018 has been head scratching. The consistent poor performance from the nordic team has somehow become the norm. Just a handful of years ago we didn’t qualify a full nordic team?? I believe in this new coach, but the overall athlete quality needs to increase. You can’t win a NC off the back of one star – that’s the beauty of NCAA skiing. A serious change needs to be made or we’ll be stuck on the outside looking in – something this storied program shouldn’t be getting used to.
Agree with all comments above. And all the more baffling, because assembling a top flight nordic team should not be difficult for the historically best NCAA ski program in history. You don’t need to have 20 good players on the team like hockey, or 12 like basketball. You need just like 4 or 5 consistent top 10 finishers (and no laggards at the bottom) to give yourself a chance in the NCAA championships. Why DU hasn’t been able to do this since 2018 is a mystery. Not only do they not do it, but they routinely have a couple XC skiers finishing near the BOTTOM of the standings during the championships. Never understood how this could happen at a program like DU.