Host Buffaloes Ready To Fight For 21st Title

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – The host Colorado Buffaloes are ready to begin the fight for the program's 21st National Championship at the 2024 NCAA Ski Championships at Steamboat Springs Resort and Howelsen Hill Wednesday through Saturday.

Colorado is host of the 71st annual championship for the 10th time with seven of those 10 times hosting at Steamboat Springs. Ski Town USA is hosting the championship for the ninth time.

The Buffs have won 20 national championships, 11 men's NCAA, one women's AIAW and eight coed NCAA championships, the last coming in 2015. Since 2006, CU has finished first or second in 12 of those 17 seasons and is the only school nationally to finish in the top four of each of the last 17 NCAA Championships.

The Buffs are coming in on a three meet win streak, winning their own Spencer James Nelson Memorial Invitational, the Denver Invitational and the RMISA Championships. The Buffs also won the RMISA Regular Season Championship and are looking for that trifecta of titles for just the fourth time, also doing so in 2006 (when the regular season championship became a reality), 2011 and 2015. The 2011 team won the RMISA and NCAA Championships and was second in the regular season race.

The contingent of 12 skiers representing CU at the NCAA Championships represents one of the most experienced Nordic teams coupled with a new set of alpine skiers. All six alpine skiers did not represent the Buffs in 2023 at the NCAA Championships, but all three women have experience at NCAAs, with Magdalena Luczak representing CU in 2022 and Denise Dingsleder and Julia Toiviainen both representing Westminster twice before transferring to CU. The men's alpine team has three freshman representing the black and gold in Etienne Mazellier, Ryder Sarchett and Filip Wahlqvist, but all three have been solid all season and Wahlqvist was the RMISA Slalom MVP and top overall seed from the west.

The Nordic team, however, is quite the opposite. The women as a trio are representing the Buffs for the third straight season and counting 2024, have a combined 12 appearances at the championships. Anna-Maria Dietze is making her fifth appearance with Weronika Kaleta making her fourth and Hanna Abrahamsson her third. The men's Nordic team has seen Magnus Boee and Will Koch for the fourth straight season while Johannes Flaaten is a freshman making his first appearance. Like Dietze, Boee is making his fifth appearance at the NCAA Ski Championships, the two the first in CU history to do so.

The giant slalom races will open the NCAA Championships on Wednesday, March 6, with the men's first run set for 9:30 a.m. followed by the women's first run at 10:30 a.m. Second runs are set for 12:30 p.m. (men's) and 1:30 p.m. (women's). The freestyle races will open the Nordic events on Thursday, March 7, with the women's 7.5K race set for 10 a.m. and the men's 7.5K race for 12 p.m. The slalom races will take place Friday, March 8, beginning with the women's first run at 6:40 p.m. and the men's first run at 7:20 p.m., with second runs set for 9 p.m. (women's) and 9:45 p.m. (men's). The CLASSIC races will close out the NCAA meet on Saturday, March 11, with the men's 20K race set for 10 a.m. and the women's 20K at 12 p.m.

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Players Mentioned

Hanna Abrahamsson

Magnus Boee

Anna-Maria Dietze

Denise Dingsleder

Johannes Flaaten

Weronika Kaleta

Will Koch

Magdalena Luczak

Etienne Mazellier

Ryder Sarchett

Julia Toiviainen

Filip Wahlqvist