2020 Skiing Roster
Stef Fleckenstein
- Position:
- ALPINE
- Height:
- 5-8
- Class:
- Sophomore
- Hometown:
- Whistler, British Columbia
- High School:
- Rockridge Secondary/Whistler Ski Club/Canadian National Team
- Career Best Slalom Finish: 1st (2020 Denver Invitational)
- Career Best Giant Slalom Finish: 2nd (Twice, last 2021 RMISA Championships)
- Three-Time All-American
- Two-Time First-Team All-American (2021 GS, 2021 Slalom)
- Second-Team All-American (2019, Slalom)
- Two-Time National Collegiate All-Academic Ski Team (2020; 3.5 cumulative GPA, participation in Regionals)
- Two-Time All-RMISA
- First-Team All-RMISA (2020)
- Second-Team All-RMISA (2021)
- Two-Time RMISA Skier of the Week (2020 DU Invitational; 2021 RMISA Championships)
- Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll (2021)
- Two-Time CU Athlete of the Week (Jan. 6-13 2020; Feb. 15-21, 2021)
- CU Academic Student of the Month (August 2020)
- 4.0 Club (2021)
- Outstanding Alpine Woman Award (2021)
- Three-Time Letterwinner (2019, 2020, 2021)
Career—Fleckenstein took a solid freshman season and catapulted herself into one of the best women’s alpine skiers in the country over her sophomore and junior campaigns. She skied in 35 of a possible 39 races in her career and finished 29 with 28 top 20, 25 top 10 and 16 top five performances including eight podium performances and one race victory. She came to CU stronger in the GS discipline, but was a threat in both disciplines as evidenced by her race win coming in slalom. Six of her eight podiums were in GS but of her 16 top five finishes, nine were GS and seven slalom. A three-time All-American, including two first team honors, and two-time All-RMISA, she picked up three career letters and a ton of other awards. Also proficient in the classroom with above a 3.9 cumulative GPA, she was named to the National Collegiate All-Academic ski team twice and the Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll once. She chose to take a year off in 2022 to pursue her dream of competing in the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing in February 2022. Should she return to CU, she would have one more season of eligibility in 2023.
2021 (Junior)—Fleckenstein suffered a shoulder injury just prior to the start of the college season and missed the first series in Colorado at Aspen for the DU Invitational and Eldora for the CU Invitational. She didn’t miss a beat after returning from injury in February, finishing seven of eight races, all in the top seven with six top five finishes and two podium performances, which were runner-up finishes both at the RMISA and NCAA Championships. She earned two first-team All-America honors at the NCAA Championships, taking second in the GS and fourth in the slalom, duplicating her efforts from the RMISA Championships where she was also second and fourth, respectively. She picked up two first-team All-America honors with her second and fourth place finishes at the NCAA Championships, just the fourth skier to accomplish that feat since Lucie Zikova in 2008, and she had the best combined finish (6, second and fourth) since Zikova swept both titles that season. At both the NCAA and RMISA Championships, she was in the lead after the first GS run, losing out to her teammate Cass Gray as the Buffs went 1-2 in the GS race to open the NCAA Championships. She opened the season at Snowbird at the RMISA Invitational at Westminster with fourth and seventh place finishes in two slalom races. At Park City a few days later, she finished one of two GS races, taking fourth in the morning race before entering the postseason. She was also named second-team All-RMISA and picked up RMISA Skier of the Week and CU Athlete of the Week honors throughout the season. She was given the team’s Outstanding Alpine Woman Award and picked up a letter for the third time in three tries, scoring for the team in all seven finishes and picking up 223 team points in those seven races. She was CU’s nominee for the Elite 90 Award at the NCAA Championships, given to the skier with the highest GPA at each of the NCAA’s 90 national championships.
2020 (Sophomore)—Fleckenstein took her college results to a whole new level in 2020, turning in one of the best women’s alpine seasons in CU history. She finished 11 of a possible 13 races with an astonishing 10 top five performances. Of those 10 top five finishes, six were on the podium and she had one race victory, the slalom race at the DU Invitational in Aspen. She won five runs throughout the season, three in GS and two in slalom, tied for the fourth-most since CU began tracking that stat in 2000. She became just the fifth women’s alpine skier in the last two decades to win five or more runs in a season and it’s just the fifth time a skier has won multiple runs in both disciplines in the same season, joining teammate Mikaela Tommy (8, 6 GS and 2 SL in 2020), Mia Cullman (5, 3/2 in 2003) and Lucie Zikova (6, 2/4 in 2008 and 8, 2/6 in 2006). She and Tommy are the first teammates to win more than five runs in the same season and both win multiple in both disciplines. She finished second on the RMISA MVP list behind Tommy and was second on the slalom and third on the GS for the RMISA’s NCAA Qualification lists and finished the season second on the GS and third on the slalom RMISA Alpine Start Lists. She opened the season in the DU series with a runner-up finish in the GS race to Tommy in the RMISA qualifier race, then took fifth in the GS and won the race as part of the DU meet, taking home the first RMISA Skier of the Week honor as the top performer in the meet. She was also named CU Athlete of the Week for the first set of races. She took third in the GS race in Eldora in the CU meet and after not finishing the slalom race as part of the meet, she took fourth in the slalom qualifier race there. In Utah, she finished fourth in the GS and second in the slalom as part of the meet and then while trying to get her second win, had to hike in the slalom qualifier race, finishing 24th. In Bozeman at the RMISA Championships, she took third in both the GS qualifier race and the race as part of the championships and fourth in the slalom race. She didn’t finish the second run of GS at the NCAA Championships after having the fifth-fastest first run before the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was named first-team All-RMISA and named to the National Collegiate All-Academic Ski team for maintaining above a 3.5 cumulative GPA and participating in the RMISA Championships.
2019 (Freshman)—Fleckenstein joined the Buffs in the Spring semester just days before the first college race and coming off injuries that didn't allow her to ski competitively until that point. She responded by starting all 14 races on the season and finishing 11 of them, with all 11 finishes coming in the top 20 and eight coming in the top 10, including an eighth place slalom finish at the NCAA Championships that earned her second-team All-America honors. After finishing just one of three races at Eldora to open the season, she finished 10 of the last 11 races of the season. She gradually improved all season and in the four races in Alaska, she had her season best in both disciplines, taking sixth in the slalom as part of the RMISA Championships, matching her season best she initially set at New Mexico, and taking eighth in the GS race, bettering her season best by one spot, which she had done twice. She has finished five of seven GS races with her one eighth, two ninth and one 12th place finishes. She also finished six of seven slalom races, earning top eight finishes in each of her last four , including two sixth place finishes, one at New Mexico and one at the RMISA Championships, and an eighth place finish at the NCAA Championships.
Prior To CU—Fleckenstein has been a member of the Canadian National Team since 2016 and also skied for the British Columbia Ski Team from 2014-16 and the Whistler Ski Club from 2008-13. She has skied at the top levels in the world and has six World Cup starts to her credit with five finishes and she has finished all four downhill races she has participated in at Lake Louise in World Cup action. She's competed in the NorAm Cup series since 2015 and finished second in the downhill point total in both 2017 and 2018. She also took sixth in the standings in slalom in 2016 and in the last three years has finished third, fifth and fourth in the alpine combined point list and has a fourth and two fifths in that time frame for Super G points. She finished ranked fourth overall each of the past two years. She has 12 total podium appearances in NorAm races. In all, she has more than 90 starts in NorAm Cup races with 12 podium appearances and one win, the downhill at Lake Louise in 2016. She has competed at the Canadian National Championships since 2014 and was the Downhill Champion in 2017 and finished second in 2016. At National Championship races, she's 12 finished races in 16 starts with 10 straight top 10 finishes dating back to 2015. In 2017 at Tremblant, she took home 4th in the GS and sixth in the slalom and in 2018 she was fifth in the slalom and eighth in the GS at Red Mountain. She has also competed in races for the European Cup and South American Cup. Entering CU, she had more than 270 starts in FIS sanctioned races with almost 200 finished races. She had 162 top 20, 107 top 10 and 74 top 5 finishes with 52 podiums and 21 race wins.
High School—Fleckenstein graduated from Rockridge Secondary school in West Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2015.
In the Classroom—Fleckenstein is majoring in Communication at Colorado. She was named to the National Collegiate All-Academic ski team for maintaining above a 3.5 grade point average (she maintains well above a 3.5).
Personal—Stefanie Fleckenstein was born September 6, 1997, in Vancouver. Her parents are Steve and Sheryl Fleckenstein and she has one sister, Katie, a freshman on the CU Ski Team. Her dad was an Olympic sailer and her mom was a professional mountain biker. She enjoys playing the ukulele, mountain biking, planning in the snow, laughing and beading in her spare time. She claims to be in a band with teammate Mikaela Tommy and that the band is a sensation in Chile and Canada and working towards fame in the United States. She wants to continue her skiing career after Colorado and then become a sports agent.
Why Colorado?—Because it's beautiful and kind of similar to Whistler! I also love the sun and I heard it doesn't rain here.
