Ski Team Heads To RMISA Championships

BOZEMAN & BIG SKY, Mont. – Fresh off a regular season championship, the Colorado Buffaloes Ski Team has traveled north to Montana to take part in the 2024 RMISA Championships Feb. 22-25 at Big Sky Resort (alpine) and Crosscut Mountain Sports Center (Nordic), the final meet ahead of the NCAA Championships in early March.

The meet serves multiple purposes, most notably the final chance to earn qualification points for the NCAA Championships, which the Buffs will host in Steamboat Springs March 6-9. Teams are only allowed to qualify up to 12 skiers for the championships, meaning this will be the end of the season for at least 60 percent of the team.

Montana State is serving as the host of the conference and regional championship, and the Bobcats will also host an extra giant slalom qualifier race, which will take place Thursday kicking things off at Big Sky Resort. Teams will race a second GS Friday to open the RMISA Championships, and then Saturday will see action in both disciplines as slalom races will end the alpine portion of the meet and the 7.5K freestyles races will open the Nordic competition. The meet concludes Sunday with the 20K classic races.

Date	Races
Thursday, March 22	Men's & Women's GS (Extra Qualifier)
Friday, March 23	Men's & Women's GS (RMISA Championships
Saturday, March 24	Men's & Women's 7.5K Freestyle/Men's & Women's Slalom
Sunday, March 25	Men's & Women's 20K Classical

Colorado had a slow start to the season with much of the team missing for the first series in Utah, and the Buffs finished fourth in the season opening Westminster Invitational. The Buffs moved up to third during the Utah Invitational, which essentially ran concurrently with the Westminster meet.

After two weeks off, the Colorado series that included the both the Colorado and Denver Invitationals were both won by the Buffaloes, both close affairs with CU winning its own meet by 36.5 points and on the strength of an amazing comeback, taking the DU meet by 11 points.

The final two days of the DU Invitational was perhaps two of the more dramatic in regular season RMISA history, as CU not only moved from third to first in the DU meet standings, but also did the same in the race for the regular season RMISA Championship. The Buffs won both, coming back to not only take the second straight meet but also win the closest regular season title in the conference's 78 year history.

It marked the first time CU won a meet since the 2019 season and the first time the Buffs won the regular season championship since 2018. Overall, it's the seventh regular season championship and 35th overall RMISA Championship, a number the Buffs look to improve upon even more this week.

On the qualification front, a few Buffs will need some key results to not only secure qualification, but also better seeding for the NCAA Championships.

In men's alpine, there are two GS races left to qualify and CU is in solid position with four of the top 11 in the qualification standings and at least two others that could significantly improve their standings. In men's slalom, the Buffs are not in as good of position except for Filip Wahlqvist, who sits atop the qualification standing. With just one slalom race remaining, CU has nobody else in the top 15 but has three skiers with one result significantly better than the other, meaning the ability to move up the list after the final race is still a possibility.

In women's alpine action, in GS the women's team is similar to the men's with four ranked in the top 11 and outside of Magdalena Luzcak, who's in a four-way tie for first place, a top five or podium will be required for the others to move up significantly. In women's slalom, the women are a little ahead of the men with Luczak in good position in third place and two others in the top 12. Similar to the GS, it will take a high finish to significantly move up.

On the Nordic side, three women are safely qualified and all rank in the top nine. The good news is all three have room to move up and improve even further should they garner one or two more solid finishes this week. The men's Nordic team has five skiers currently qualified including four safely qualified in the top nine.

In all four disciplines, the main goal is to qualify a full team, and the Buffs for the most part are in good shape on that front, although the other teams have similar goals and mathematically could still spoil that for the Buffs. The next, and sometimes more important, goal in terms of chances to win the NCAA Championship, is seeding. Every skier competing for the Buffs the next four days has opportunity to improve their seeding, and doing so will be key not only to determining which skiers represent the Buffs, but also how good of a chance the Buffs have to make a run at the title in two weeks in Steamboat.

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Players Mentioned

Filip Wahlqvist