Tommy Wins Third Straight GS, Buffs Take Lead At Own Invitational

Wednesday, January 15

Nederland, Colo.

All Day

Colorado

Giant Slalom

Photo by: Dan Madden

Tommy Wins Third Straight GS, Buffs Take Lead At Own Invitational

January 15, 2020 | Skiing

Highlights Results (PDF)

By: Curtis Snyder, Assistant AD/Sports Information

ELDORA—Senior Mikaela Tommy won her third straight giant slalom race for the second straight season to power the Colorado Ski Team into the lead after the first day of its own Spencer James Nelson Memorial Invitational here Wednesday.

Last season, Tommy also won the first three GS races in which she competed, becoming the first women's alpine skier in CU history to win three straight GS races. CU's single season record for GS wins is four and last year Tommy became the second skier to win more than one women's GS race in a season. Her six career GS wins ranks tied for first in CU history and is tied for second for overall wins by a women's alpine skier.

Sophomore Stef Fleckenstein continued her impressive start to the season, hitting the podium in third place, her third podium in four races this season and fourth top-five finish. On the men's side, sophomore Filip Forejtek just missed the podium in fourth place while Joey Young finished eighth and Teddy Takki 11th.

The Buffs scored 165 combined points to open up a 12-point lead over Utah (153) with Montana State (146.5) and Denver (130.5) both in striking distance as just two of eight races in the meet are complete.

CU's meet will continue with two more days of alpine racing in Eldora. Thursday's slalom races will conclude the alpine portion of the team standings for the Spencer Nelson Invitational and Friday's slalom races will be an RMISA Qualifier. The Nordic teams will then get their respective seasons underway Saturday and Sunday in Steamboat Springs to close out the eighth annual running of the meet.

TEAM: The Buffs scored 91 points in the women's race and 74 in the men's race to score 165 on the first day of action in the CU Invitational. Utah (153), Montana State (146.5) and Denver (130.5) are all within 35 points of the Buffs. Alaska Anchorage (115) rounds out the top five while Westminster (99) and Colorado Mountain (68) are also here competing.

ALPINE WOMEN: Tommy sat in second place after the first run but then blazed her way to the fastest time in the field on the second run to win the race by four-tenths of a second. Fleckenstein was fourth after the first run and then moved up onto the podium by also having the fourth-fastest second run. Senior Andrea Arnold finished 14th and sophomore Katilyn Harsch 16th as the other two finishers. Sophomore Olivia Gerrard and freshman Emma Hammergaard both didn't finish the first run, which wasn't unique as almost one-third of the field skied out in the first run.

ALPINE MEN: Forejtek had his best race of the season and third career top five finish in fourth place as he was just 22-hundredths of a second off the podium and less than a second behind race winner Addison Dvoracek from Utah. Young's eighth place is the 15th top 10 of his career and third in three GS races this season. Takki missed out on a top 10 by 15-hundredths of a second as he improved his seeding and qualification points with his second-best finish of the season. Freshman Alex Birkner finished 19th and sophomore Bobby Ryan took 24th while Max Bervy didn't finish the first run.

WHAT IT MEANS: Tommy and Fleckenstein both continued their stellar seasons as the two best skiers on the women's alpine side in the RMISA. Leading your own invitational is never a bad thing and the Buffs getting two of the six belt buckles for hitting the podium is always good. There's still a lot of racing left both in the CU meet and the season. With seeding issues on the slalom side, the men's team needs to take advantage of skiing on the Buffs' home hill the next two days and improve upon their slalom performance in Aspen last weekend.

NOTEWORTHY:

Tommy's win:
- Gives her three in three GS races this season, matching her total from last year which is the second-most in a season for GS in CU history for women's alpine.
- Gives her six career GS wins, tied for the most in CU history for women's alpine.
- Gives her six total alpine wins, tied for second-most in CU history for women's alpine.
- Is huge for NCAA Championship implications as the worst she can do for seeding for the GS race is be tied for the top seed out of the RMISA.
- Gives her six wins in her last eight GS races.
Tommy won the second run of the race, giving her three run wins in six on the season. Fleckenstein has won two of the other three runs.
Fleckenstein hit the podium for the third time this season and hasn't finished lower than fifth in the four college races. She now has a second and third place finish in the GS and sits second on the NCAA Qualification list behind Tommy.
Tommy has won all three GS races and Fleckenstein the only slalom race, giving the CU women's alpine team four wins in four races this season. Additionally, those two have won seven of the eight runs in those four races, Tommy four and Fleckenstein three.
This women's alpine team joins the 2006 squad by winning each of the first four races of the season.

QUOTE WORTHY:

Richard Rokos: "It was a good day. This is our home meet, it's our pride, we're at home and we want to do our best."

"For Mikaela, GS is her domain and she's very good at slalom, too. It's good to see her doing so well. And Stef, they're both pushing each other and taking no prisoners. The rest of the women's team had a little misfortune, Kaitlyn and Andrea can both be a little higher, Emma is still adjusting to these conditions and Olivia took a serious tumble today. But they all had great effort and that's good to see."

"Filip is a good skier. The men's side is going to be a dogfight when the first three or four guys come back from the World Cup. Having him is a good comfort for me, to know that he is capable of competing with those guys. Joey can dominate this hill and typically does but had a little misfortune on his second run but still finished in the top 10. We had a solid day all around on the men's side today."

"Emma still doesn't know the way between Boulder and Eldora like well all do by heart. Last week was her first appearance in the Rocky Mountains and today was her first time on our home hill. She's adapting to the dry snow in the Rocky Mountains, it's different than Sweden. She's a very well equipped technical skier and everybody goes through it."

"The next two days are very important, especially for the men's team. We're not seeded as good in slalom as we are in GS, especially on the men's side. Tomorrow that shouldn't be too much of a factor, the hill is in great shape. We will definitely need to improve our seeding, and this is a great chance, on our home hill with good conditions. The guys have a good opportunity to redeem themselves. Tomorrow will be our day to take over."

Mikaela Tommy: "As a team we did really well today and it was a good start to our home races. Tomorrow's a new event, the slalom. Everybody's a little bitter about our slalom in Aspen. We had a few good results but a lot of mistakes, but we can really pull it together at home and flip the switch so we can get things back on track in slalom. It's really important tomorrow for us to collect as many points as possible.

When you're at your home hill, you feel like you have an advantage, but most of the time it's more of a feeling of you know when you messed up or you know you're not at your best because you've trained it so many times. It's hard to know, it could feel bad to you but actually be pretty good compared to everybody else because you've trained on it more than others.

Joey Young: "The team did OK today. We're all a little disappointed in how we did in Aspen, we want to build confidence, attack and get back on track tomorrow in the slalom races."

Filip Forejtek: "I did pretty well in the first run, but I made a mistake on the second run but I still had a solid result. The guys did better than we did in Aspen, we have to push more and get ready for slalom."

UP NEXT: The alpine teams have two more days of racing at Eldora, both slalom races. Thursday's races will be a part of the team scoring for the CU Invitational and Friday will be an RMISA Qualifier, which won't count for team scores but will for individual accolades including NCAA Championship seeding, MVP and All-RMISA and other awards.

TEAM—1. Colorado 165; 2. Utah 153; 3. Montana State 146.5; 4. Denver 130.5; 5. Alaska Anchorage 115; 6. Westminster College 99; 7. Colorado Mountain 68.

MEN'S GIANT SLALOM (26 collegiate finishers)—1. Addison Dvoracek, UU, 1:51.50; 2. Joachim Lien, UU, 1:52.08; 3. Aage Solheim, MSU, 1:52.17; 4. Filip Forejtek, CU, 1:52.39; 5. Tobias Kogler, DU, 1:52.54; 6. Mikkel Wahl, WMC, 1:52.85; 7. Didrik Nilsen, UAA, 1:52.88; 8. Joey Young, CU, 1:53.05; 9. Fredrik Maurstad, UU, 1:53.28; 10. Louis Muhlen-Schulte, MSU, 1:53.64. Other CU Finishers: 11. Teddy Takki, 1:53.89; 19. Alex Birkner, 1:54.62; 24. Bobby Ryan, 1:55.28. Did Not Finish First Run: Max Bervy.

WOMEN'S GIANT SLALOM (23 collegiate finishers)—1. Mikaela Tommy, CU, 1:54.26; 2. Nellie Talbot, MSU, 1:54.66; 3. Stef Fleckenstein, CU, 1:54.78; 4. Sona Moravcikova, UU, 1:54.83; 5. Storm Klomhaus, DU, 1:55.19; 6. Andrea Komsic, DU, 1:55.54; 7. Cecily Decker, MSU, 1:55.74; 8. Kathryn Parker, UU, 1:55.87; 9. Henriette Resen, WMC, 1:56.55; 10. Julia Toiviainen, WMC, 1:56.74. Other CU Finishers: 14. Andrea Arnold, 1:57.65; 16. Kaitlyn Harsch, 1:57.65. Did Not Finish First Run: Olivia Gerrard, Emma Hammergaard.