Skiing Notebook

BOULDER — This edition of the University of Colorado skiing notebook highlights the Buffalo Nordic teams ahead of its races at the Utah Invitational, another milestone for head coach Richard Rokos, a third athlete with CU ties headed to the Olympics as well as a David Ketterer World Cup update.

• The CU Nordic team, which is coming off the Montana State Invitational where it won its portion of the meet by a 34-point margin, is set to continue racing again on Thursday.

The Buffs stayed put in West Yellowstone, Mont. after last Sunday's win, as the Nordic portion of the Utah Invitational was moved there to the Rendezvous Ski Trails because of a lack of snow at the previously scheduled site, Soldier Hollow in Utah. CU will compete in the 5/10K classic races on Thursday and the 15/20K freestyle Friday.

CU enters the Nordic portion of the Utah Invitational in third place, 20½ points behind second place Montana State and 56 behind meet leader Denver.

• The women's Nordic team had quite the open to the 2018 season and in the first team meet scored 201 points. That was 69 more points than the next highest scoring women's Nordic team, which was Utah. Combining the freestyle and classic races, the Buffs had one race victory, three podium finishes and seven top 10's.

Since 2014 when the current scoring format was adopted, there have only been two regular season meets where a women's Nordic team scored over 200 points, and both were done by the Buffaloes. The first time occurred at the 2017 Montana State Invitational when CU put up 205 points. In that MSU Invite last year, Petra Hyncicova won both races, Ane Johnsen was on the podium for both and there were seven total top 10 finishes from the Buffs.

There has been one meet, however, where a women's Nordic team scored a higher point total using the current format. That came in the 2016 RMISA Championships/NCAA West Regional when the Utah Utes' women's Nordic team scored 211 points.

• The win in the Montana State Invitational to open the season was the 70th meet victory in the now 28-year career of head coach Richard Rokos. The Buffs have won 70 of 166 (42.2 percent) meets they have skied in under Rokos, including the eight NCAA titles and 14 RMISA Championships/NCAA West Regionals.

• The MSU Invite victory was the 59th West Region regular season meet win for the Buffs since skiing merged to a coed sport in 1983. Among all of the schools in the West, that win total ranks second, slightly behind Utah, who holds the overall lead having won 59½ regular season meets. The Utes shared the 1985 Wyoming Invitational title with UW.

• An added boost for the Buffs as they look to comeback in the Utah Invite is that they will field a complete Nordic roster. Missing in the MSU Invite was freshman Alvar Alev, who was back in his home country to compete in the Estonian National Championships. There he took second in the men's 15K freestyle and fourth in the men's skiathlon 15/15K classic/freestyle, an impressive showing.

CU's men's Nordic team was second in the opening meet of this season without Alev, scoring 151 points that trailed Utah's 186.

• Colorado will have at least three ties to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea come February. Former Buff Nordic skier Joanne Reid made Team USA in the sport of biathlon and then two CU graduates, ones who were not ski team members, have also qualified for Team USA. Brian Hansen, who was a student at CU for two years, will be making his third Olympic appearance in long track speedskating. The third is Kendall Wesenberg in the sport of skeleton. Wesenberg is a 2012 graduate of the CU Leeds School of Business and originally from Modesto, Calif.

There are several current Buffalo skiers looking to make the Olympic teams of their home nations. If any current Buffs are selected, those will be announced over the coming days.

• Sophomore alpine skier David Ketterer will be completing his World Cup tour with two more slalom starts before returning to Boulder on Jan. 24. Ketterer will race in Sunday's men's slalom event in Kitzbuehel, Austria and in Tuesday's slalom at Schladming, Austria. Ketterer has made six World Cup slalom starts this year and eight for his career. His first two starts took place last January at the same two sites where he will race at in the coming days.

In his six starts this year, he has qualified for the second run twice and finished one of those, placing 26th at Val d'Isere, France, to earn 5.0 World Cup points.

Colorado University Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Alvar Alev

Petra Hyncicova

Ane Johnsen

David Ketterer

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