Erling Christiansen

Position:
Nordic
Height:
5-10
Weight:
158
Class:
Senior
Hometown:
Oslo, Norway
High School:
Norges Toppidrettjgym

Top Career Freestyle Finish: 1st (2005 Alaska and Denver Invitationals)

Top Career Classical Finish: 3rd (2003 NCAA West Regional)

2003 Second Team All-American (freestyle, classical)

2004 First Team All-American (freestyle, classical)

2005 First-Team All-American (freestyle)

2004, 05 All-Rocky Mountain Ski Association Team Member

2004 Division I National All-Academic Ski Team Member

This Season ? “Our goals for Erling are very lofty because his efforts on improving his classic technique throughout the summer and fall have shown he is capable of anything. We firmly believe he can be an NCAA champion in either of the Nordic disciplines.”

2005 ? The No. 1 seed out of the west region, junior Erling Christiansen had the strongest season of his career with only four results lower than fifth place and his first career wins, back-to-back freestyle victories at the Alaska and Denver Invitationals. His strongest combined meet of the season was at the New Mexico Michelobo Invitational where he finished second in the freestyle, missing his third straight win in the discipline by just 17.1 seconds and the classic race by a slimmer margin, 15 seconds, to finish third. His top-10 finish streak was snapped at 17 straight races when he finished 12th in the classical at the NCAA Championships. Two days later in what he called the most fun race of the year, he had a runner-up finish in the freestyle.

2004 ? In his strongest season to date, Christiansen scored in all 11 races as his second season culminated in a pair of first team All-American finishes in both the freestyle and classical at the NCAA Championships. He had top-10 finishes in all but one race as a sophomore, a 13th place classical finish at the Utah Invitational. He missed the classical portion of the Colorado Invitational due to illness. With the freestyle proving to be the stronger of his two disciplines, he had top-five efforts in all but one race, an eighth place finish at the NCAA West Regional which he made up for a week later with a third-place finish at the national championships, tying his best career finish in the event. Two days later he finished fifth in the 20k classical, skiing the four laps in 53:23.6 after actually slipping and falling at the start and being in 30th place in the early going. He was named to the All-Rocky Mountain Ski Association Team and was the recipient of the team’s Laura Sharpe Flood Award for exemplifying the late CU skier’s spirit, enthusiasm and dedication.

2003 ? One of two newcomers on the men’s nordic team, Christiansen did nothing short of joining teammate Henrik Hoye on the immediate impact meter. Outside of an 11th-place finish in the CU Invite classical and a DNF in the freestyle the day before, he had eight top-10 finishes in as many races. After an eighth and sixth place finish in the freestyle and classical, respectively at Soldier Hollow, Utah, his strongest meet was at the Montana State Invitational as he was fifth in the classical and a team-best third in the freestyle. His only DNF of the season was in the freestyle at the CU Invitational, but he would go on to finish 11th a day later in the classical portion of the meet. Since then it’s been all top-10 and (almost) all top-CU finisher as he finished sixth in the classical and third in the freestyle in Crested Butte and seventh in the freestyle, third in the classical in the West Regional, right behind Hoye. He turned in a team best pair of eighth place finishes in both races, and a pair of second team All-American honors, at the NCAA Championships in Hanover, N.H. He was an RMISA All Conference selection.

Club ? Since 1985 he has been skiing for I.L. Heming. He took bronze in the Scandinavian Nordic Championships in 2000. That same season he was the 10k classical runner-up at the Norwegian Junior Championship and third in the 15k skating, an event that he was the runner-up in ’99. He spent the summer working for Greenpeace.

Academics ? With a 3.4 cumulative grade point average, Christiansen is a philosophy/geography major at Colorado and would like to be a newspaper journalist after college. He was named to the 2004 and ?05 Division I National All-Academic Ski Team.

Personal ? Erling Andreas Nergaard Christiansen was born June 1, 1982 in Oslo, Norway. He is the son of Erling Christiansen and Wenche Nergaard of Oslo. He has a younger brother, Morten. His hobbies include anything nature related. An environmentalist, he also participated in some demonstrations against the contamination of the Oslofjord in 2002. He also wrote a short story about the hypocrisy of religion and became one of five winners in a nation-wide writing contest by the biggest publisher in the country.