It was the final day of competition Saturday morning at the NCAA Skiing Championships. The morning featured Nordic freestyle at Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Midway, Utah. DU struggled on the day, failing to deliver a top 10 result, and held on to the third spot. Utah won the 2026 NCAA Skiing Championship over second-place CU. Not the finish any of us wanted to see.

In the women’s mass start race, Denver struggled. The University of Vermont placed three skiers in the top 12 and CU and Utah, battling for the top spot in the team competion, placed two skiers each in the the top dozen.  DU’s Synne Bollingmo finished 14th with Eve-Ondine Duchaufour and Maja Moland finishing together at 25th and 26th, a disappointing conclusion to the Nordic event for the DU women. Denver finished a distant 9th in the team points, collecting only 28 points.

The men’s freestyle team held off Montana State 44 to 42 to cement Denver in third place in the overall standings. Yannick Zellweger and Eemil Juntunen finished together at 15th and 16th, closely followed by Sondre Oestervold. Utah finished second in Freestyle points, followed by Colorado

Alaska Fairbanks won the men’s freestyle by a single point. However, Utah secured the 2026 National Skiing Championship, its 18th.  

That’s the end of another Denver ski season. Yes, there is work to do but we still saw some outstanding individual Pioneer performances. And, lots of changes next season with the roster.

Denver will need to fill a dozen roster spots next season and add some depth to the team. On the women’s side, senior Nordic skier Eve-Ondine Duchaufour and Alpine skiers Sara Rask, Mia Hunt, Nicole Rountree-Williams and Josephine Trueblood graduate. The men’s team is losing seven skiers. In Alpine, Thomas Hoffman, Adrian Minda Hunshammer, Eirik Kveno, Christian Soevik and Sondre Oestervold, Michah Steinberg and Krystof Zatloukal in Nordic.