Rokos Adds Two Skiers For Spring Semester

BOULDER—Emma Hammergaard and Bobby Ryan will both join the Colorado Ski Team ahead of the spring semester and 2020 season, coach Richard Rokos announced Tuesday. Hammergaard and Ryan are both alpine skiers.

Hammergaard comes to Boulder from Sweden, where she has skied in 102 FIS, Junior National Championship and National Championship races for Gavle Alpina, where she has skied since 2004. She had a solid 2019 season that saw her hit the podium six times including her first race win in a slalom race in Kabdalis, Sweden in December 2018 when she hit the podium twice. She also hit the podium twice in slalom races at Duved, Sweden last January and then once each at Klappen and Sundsvall.

She took home fourth place in the slalom at the Swedish Junior National Championships in 2018 and followed that up with a ninth-place finish in 2019. In giant slalom, she took home 10th in 2018 and 13th in 2019 at the same championships. She also took home 15th place in alpine combined at the Swedish National Championships back in 2016 when she finished 21st in slalom, 23rd in the Super G and 28th in giant slalom.

She can speak fluent Swedish, English and some French and enjoys cooking, baking, listening to music and watching movies when she's not doing some action-packed adventures in the outdoors.

Ryan comes to Colorado after a season skiing for Boston College in the Eastern Region. He is from Kingsbury, N.Y., and attended Killington Mountain School in Vermont, where he went to school and trained in skiing from 2012-18. He also skied for the Belleayre Mountain club from 2006-12.

He has skied in 182 FIS-sanctioned races since 2015 with eight podium appearances and two wins. Included are 13 starts on the Nor-Am Cup circuit where he finished in the top 30 three times in the downhill in the 2016-17 season, earning six points. He also has competed in the United States and Canadian National Championships and Junior National Championships. At Killington, he won the 2017 Sugarloaf downhill and trained and competed with the national training group projects.

At Boston College last season, he participated in nine of 12 regular season races and finished eight of those nine races with his best finish coming at the EISA Championships at the end of the season, taking 15th place in the giant slalom at Bates.

He is planning to major in Business Management and Entrepreneurship and would like to start his own business someday. He was on the Dean's List at Boston College and at Killington Mountain School he was honored with the Fred Coriell Cup, given to the male and female who truly embody the KMS mission statement.

The two newest members of the team have just a few days to prep for the start of the season, which kicks off Friday in Aspen at the Denver Invitational. A giant slalom qualifier race will take place Friday with another GS and then slalom race Saturday and Sunday for races in the DU Invitational. They will then head to Eldora for the Colorado Invitational Jan. 15-17 with one GS and two slalom races before the Nordic portion of the CU meet takes place in Steamboat Springs Saturday and Sunday.

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