Last updated on July 31, 2018
The 2019 ski season will be the 16th season Jana Weinberg has been affiliated with the Colorado Buffaloes, but it will be her first in charge of the Nordic team. Weinberger was promoted into the role of head Nordic coach for the Buffaloes on July 31, 2018 after she had served as the assistant Nordic coach at CU for the previous 11 seasons and was a two-time NCAA individual champion skier herself at CU from 2003-06.
In her 11 seasons on the Buffalo coaching staff, working under her Nordic coach from her collegiate racing days, Bruce Cranmer, the duo put together the top Nordic program in the country. In her tenure, Colorado finished first or second in the Nordic points standings at the NCAA Championships eight times and in five of those seasons CU won the mythical Nordic national championship (2008, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2015).
Weinberger helped guide a total of 16 different skiers to 86 race victories and she coached nine different Buffs who have won a combined 14 NCAA individual national titles. Additionally, she has seen 20 different Nordic skiers garner a combined 51 first-team All-America honors.
As a skier, Weinberger raced 28 collegiate races, claiming 27 top 10 and 23 top five finishes. As a senior in 2006, she captained the national championship team and herself swept six consecutive races, including winning the individual titles in both the freestyle and classical events at the NCAA Championships.
She is one of four Nordic athletes in school history that have swept the NCAA Nordic titles in the same year, and she has coached two of the other three. Petra Hyncicova swept the NCAA titles in 2017 and Mads Stroem did so in 2016.
Hyncicova and Stroem excelled under Weinberger’s tutelage. Hyncicova, the 2017 national Nordic skier of the year, went on to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics for her home country, the Czech Republic. Stroem won three total NCAA titles under Weinberger and was an eight-time All-American (seven first-team honors), tying the program record for most All-America honors and first-team accolades in a career.
Of the 14 individual NCAA titles that have been won by Buffs during her coaching tenure, five have been males and three females. Four of the skiers have won multiple national titles (Stroem 3, Maria Grevsgaard 2, Hyncicova 2 and Rune Oedegaard 2).
As a result of Weinberger’s performance in 2006, she was awarded the Dick Schoenberger Memorial Award, presented to CU’s most outstanding skier each season. When she won a pair of All-America citations in 2004, she became just the sixth women’s cross country skier to accomplish that feat and first since former teammate and former assistant coach Mari Storeng in 2001. Weinberger was also the recipient of the Outstanding Nordic Woman award in both 2003 and ’04.
Prior to her collegiate career, she skied for the Tartu Ski Club in Estonia. She also competed in basketball and track & field at Estonia Sport Gymnasium.
Born July 27, 1979 in Russia, the former Jana Rehemaa is the daughter of Udo and Veir Rehemaa. She graduated from the University of Colorado in 2006 with a degree in international affairs. She is married to former CU All-American and her predecessor as the assistant Nordic Coach, Dan Weinberger, and the couple has three children, Klara, Alexander and William.
One of two children of Udo and Veira Rehemaa, her younger borther, Aivar, was a world junior Nordic champion. Her aunt, Rutt Rehemaa, was one of the top female Nordic racers ever in Estonia and later became a famous sports personality while her uncle was her long-time coach before she came to race for Colorado. She had skied for the Tartu Ski Club in Estonia with her first cousin, Katrin Smigun, who won the 2003 NCAA freestyle championship while skiing for the University of Utah.