Ketterer Competes in First World Cup Race of Season

LEVI, Finland — University of Colorado sophomore alpine skier David Ketterer competed in his first World Cup race of the season on Sunday in the men's slalom race held at the Levi Ski Resort.

Ketterer, the 2017 NCAA Champion in both the slalom and giant slalom, has been over in Europe for just about two weeks with the German National Team. Ketterer is a native of Bad Durrheim, Germany and an engineering student-athlete for the Buffaloes.

He got off to a very good start on his first run and actually had the fifth fastest time in the field through the third interval, the last one before the finish, but skied out at the bottom and was unable to complete the run.

"Very mad that I didn't push through the last 10 gates, won't happen again," Ketterer wrote Sunday on his Facebook page. "Still good to see that I have the speed, especially in the flats."

His time through that third interval was 37.99.

Felix Neureuther of Germany (37.56), Dave Ryding of Great Brittan (37.69), Marcel Hirscher of Austria (37.96) and Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway (37.98) where the only competitors faster than Ketterer through the third interval.

Hirscher, Kristoffersen and Neureuther are the three top-ranked slalom skiers in the world in that order while Ryding is 10th, so Ketterer was just as fast three-fourths of the way down run one as the best skiers in the world.

He had a No. 31 start position for Sunday's first run that featured 92 racers, a high starting point that was reflective of his world ranking in the men's slalom with six FIS points.

"That is an absolutely fantastic starting position for me this year," Ketterer said from Levi back on Thursday in a video conference on the Buffs ski team Instagram page.

"I got some good summer training (with the German National Team) and then I went back to school and had two months without skiing before the season started at Copper (Mountain, when the Buffs first got on snow back on Oct. 21). I got less training than the other guys on the team, but I kind of got right back to it in Levi and I'm confident. I think it is going to be a good race and I fell well prepared, for sure."

This was third World Cup start for Ketterer. On Jan. 22 and 24, 2017, he started two FIS World Cup slalom races in Kitzbühel, Austria.

"That was very hectic, so those were my first two World Cups and both of them were like the biggest races on the tour, it was 40,000 people at least at each race," Ketterer said Thursday. "It was kind of tough (back then) coming right from Colorado where the snow is very different than the European snow and going right there with very few training runs going right into the race.

"I came over to (Levi) so early, I was here like 10 days, so I had time to adapt to the jet lag, to the technique to ski on the snow up here and set up the material. I learned a lot from that and it is also nice to get more used to skiing where there is a lot of people around and cameras and everything."

Ketterer will now return to Boulder to get back in the classroom and continuing training with the Buffs. He said on Sunday on his Facebook page that his next World Cup slalom start will be in Val d'Isere on Dec. 10.

The NCAA season for the Buffalo alpine team begins on Jan. 6, 2018 in Big Sky, Mont. for the first of two RMISA Alpine Qualifiers followed by the Montana State Invitational.

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