Cassidy Gray

Position:
Alpine
Height:
5-4
Class:
Freshman
Hometown:
Panorama, British Columbia
High School:
David Thompson Secondary/Alberta/Canadian National Team

Updated Oct. 13, 2021

Top Career GS Finish: First (2021 RMISA Invitational at Utah)
Top Career Slalom Finish: 10th (2021 RMISA Invitational at Solider Hollow

Honors

Individual National Champion (2021 Giant Slalom)
First-Team All-American (2021 Giant Slalom)
CU Female Freshman of the Year Winner (2021 CUSPY)
CU Female Athlete of the Year Finalist (2021 CUSPY)
Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame Collegiate Skier of the Year (2021)
Two-Time CU Athlete of the Week (Feb. 8-14, 2021; March 8-14, 2021)
Dick Schoenberger Award (2021)
Letterwinner (2021)

Career—Few athletes make a big impact with limited results, but that’s exactly what Gray did in her freshman season at CU, and then some. While skiing for the Canadian National Team, she raced in just six of a possible 12 races in 2021, finishing five, all in the top 20, with three top 10 and two top five performances, which were both GS race wins. She earned the individual National Championship in the GS race, CU’s first in the discipline since Lucie Zikova in 2008. She will leave CU for the 2022 season to pursue her dream of skiing for Team Canada in the XXIV Winter Olympics Games in Beijing in February 2022, and is expected to return to CU for her sophomore season in 2023.

2021 (Freshman)—Gray enrolled at CU prior to the spring semester and then missed the Colorado series (DU and CU Invitationals) in January while she was making her World Cup debut in Kjanjsak Gora. She returned for four races in Utah, picking up 10th and 12th in two slalom races and winning her first career GS race while taking a DNF in her second. She had the fastest second run in the field in her first career race and then had the fastest first run later that afternoon before taking the DNF. She missed the RMISA Championships again skiing with the Canadian National team at the World Championships, where she finished 23rd in the GS race, believed to be the best finish for a women’s alpine skier at the World Championships. She also finished fifth in the GS at the Italian National Championships before meeting the team back in New Hampshire for the NCAA Championships. Starting 26th because of only having one GS result for qualification points, she had the third-fastest first run in the field, then had the fastest second run to edge out teammate Stef Fleckenstein as the two took 1-2 to open the championships. She became the first CU women’s alpine skier to win her first race at the NCAA Championships since Aimee-Noel Hartley took the GS crown in 1999 and she’s just the second women’s alpine skier to win an individual championship as a freshman, joining Lynda McGehee, who took the GS title in 1986. She took 13th in the slalom race to close out her freshman season two days later. On the strength of her Individual National Championship, she was named first-team All-American and given the team’s Dick Schoenberger Award. She was also given CU’s Female Freshman of the Year Award and was a finalist for the Female Athlete of the Year. Additionally, she was named the collegiate skier of the year by the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame.

Prior To CU—She skied for Team Panorama from 2008-19 and for the Alberta Ski Team from 2019-20, and since 2018 has been a member of the Canadian National Team, currently as part of its NextGen program. She made her World Cup debut after joining the CU team before she had arrived prior to the spring semester on Jan. 16-17 in Kjanjska Gora in two GS races, one of which she placed 26th and earned five points. She had her first official FIS start at the beginning of the 2018 season. Prior to that she was the Canadian U16 overall, slalom and Super G champions. She has 99 starts in FIS races with 52 top 10 finishes, including 29 podium appearances and 14 race victories. She won the giant slalom race at the Canadian National Championships in Nov. 2020 and has four top 10 finishes in the Canadian National Championships, including taking fourth in the slalom, also in Nov. 2020, seventh in the slalom in 2018 and 10th in the GS in 2019. She competed at the Junior World Championships last season, taking 20th in the Super G and 21st in the GS. She has 34 NorAm Cup starts to her credit with nine top 10 performances, with three of those top 10s already coming in 2021 at Whiteface Mountain. She recorded five wins in the 2018 season, six in the 2019 season, one in 2020 and already two in 2021. In 2020 on the NorAm Cup, she ranked eighth in alpine combined, 11th in Super G and 13th in GS. She is currently a 30.5 point skier in GS and ranked No. 130 in the world and holds rankings of No. 135 in Super G (45.4 points) and 301st in slalom (46.5 points).

High School—She graduated from David Thompson Secondary School in Invermere, British Columbia, in 2019.

In The Classroom—She plans to major in Integrative Physiology at Colorado and would eventually like to go into the medical field … She was an honor roll student for four years at David Thompson Secondary School.
Personal—Cassidy Joan Gray was born Jan. 25, 2001, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Her parents are Rob and Joanne Gray. She has three brothers, Brody, Dylan and Tayton, and two sisters, Jacquelyn and Zoe. She was given the Margaret Dunphy Sportsmanship Award. She enjoys biking, hiking and power skiing and was a volunteer soccer coach for three years.

Why Colorado—"I love the town of Boulder and the school has such a cool vibe to it that it just felt like home right away.”