Colorado University Athletics
Ski Team's Christiansen Earns CU Athlete of the Week Honors
March 16, 2004 | General, Skiing
BOULDER - Sophomore Erling Christiansen has earned CU Athlete of the Week honors for his performances at the 51st Annual NCAA Championships this past Saturday. Christiansen earned first-team All-America honors in both the mens freestyle and classical races, leading Colorado to its first-ever Nordic national title, and fourth place finish overall in the NCAA Championships.
Hailing from Oslo, Norway the 5'10 nordic sensation added a fifth place finish in the classical to his third place outing in the freestyle, skiing the four laps in 53:23.6, while earning first-team All-American honors for the second time in this meet. Top five finishes earn skiers the first-team honor, while finishing sixth through 10th nets a second-team honor. This was the first first-team honor for Christiansen, who actually slipped and fell at the start, which left him in 30th place in the early going.
"In cross country skiing there is no mercy," Head Coach Richard Rokos said. "No one will give you any slack, or give you the right of way, they make your life miserable. So for him to pass 25 skiers, his life was miserable 25 times. To his credit, it was a tremendous effort."
Since 1985, the Oslo native has been skiing for I.L. Hemino. He took the bronze in the Scandinavian Nordic Championships in 2000. That same season he was the 10K classical runner-up at the Norwegian Junior Championship and third in the 15K skating, an even that he was the runner-up in 1999. With a better tan 3.0 cumulative grade point average, Christiansen is a philosophy major at CU and would like to be a newspaper journalist.
Other nominees for this week's award are: Dathan Ritzenhein (men's track), and Renee Metivier (women's track).
Women's track: All-American Renee Metivier finished sixth at the NCAA's, taking the second 3k time in school history, and All-American for the first time.
The Texas native took sixth in the women's 3,000 meter run in a time of 9:12.89. The time is the third fastest women's indoor 3K in school history behind Sara Gorton's marks of 9:07.16 and 9:11.55 and is a personal best for Metivier.
"Renee was affected by a blistering pace set by the winner," said head coach Mark Wetmore. "Renee handled that and ran very well and very intelligently. Probably the most sound tactical race I've seen her run for Colorado. She worked her way up from the back to sixth place, so I'm very happy with Renee's race. She was mostly happy with it, but she felt weary from the race last week, but who can complain with 9:12."
Men's track: CU sophomore Dathan Ritzenhein took fourth in the men's 5K run in a time of 13:42.09. It was a close race, as the top four finishers were separated by less than three seconds. The winner, Alistair Cragg, came in at 13:39.63, running on his home track for the last time. Ian Dobson of Stanford was the runner up at 13:40.91, followed by Richard Kiplagat of Iona in 13:41.67. Ritzenhein was the top American finisher, and improved on his season best time of 13:55.50, a personal best and the second fastest time in CU history behind only Adam Goucher's mark of 13:38.23.
"We expected the men's race to be tentative," said head coach Mark Wetmore. "Dathan and I agreed he would get going if he felt well. He was leading the whole way, but Cragg went ahead about 10 or 15 meters. It was pretty obvious the guys behind Cragg were just racing for second, but a lot of guys came back quickly and finished within one second of each other. Dathan doesn't like to get fourth place, so he was upset. It was a very good time considering how slow he went out. It was a good step forward for him and prepares him for the outdoor season."
