BOZEMAN, Mont. — In one of the most dramatic days of racing in RMISA Championship history, the University of Denver ski team swept the women's slalom race to close out a fantastic day of skiing, coming back from a 50-point deficit on the final the day to defeat Utah for the first time this season. 

Entering the day, Utah held a six-point lead over DU (329-323) with Colorado (322.5) just a half-point back. The Pioneers struggled in the first result of the day, the men's 20K classic race, and found themselves 50 points behind Utah (434-384) at that point. Eveliina Piippo and Vera Norli then went 1-2 in the women's 15K classic race to start to chip away at the Utes lead. At that point, Utah had a 37 point lead over the Pioneers, 517-480. Tobias Kogler then won the men's slalom race and Simon Fournier took third to continue to chip away at the lead, 597-577.  

The men got the women alpine team close enough to control their own destiny, as a podium sweep is worth 111 points and the most any other team could score would be 87 points, a 24-point difference. That's almost exactly what happened. After the first women's slalom run, the Pioneers sat 1-2-3 in the women's race and Utah was 9-10-11. The Utes definitely put the pressure on, however, improving to sit in the fifth, sixth and seventh scoring spots after their second runs.  

In the end, the women placed five in the top seven but the three skiers that lead after the first run, Amelia Smart, Storm Klomhaus and Katie Hensien, had to hold those spots to secure the team victory. They did just that, earning the first podium sweep in the RMISA for the entire season by any team. CU had one skier finish fourth, giving DU a 111-81 advantage over Utah in the final race to go from a 20-point deficit to a 10-point win. 



Further sweetening the pot is the fact that Utah had dominated the regular season, scoring three of the four highest point totals since the current scoring system went into effect in 2014.  

Piippo won her fourth race of the season and won her race handily, by 31.2 seconds over Norli, who was then 25.5 seconds ahead of third place. Emma Larsson was the Pioneers third team scorer in 13th place and Gracie Shanley finished 23rd. With her win, Piippo earned the No. 2 seed in the RMISA for the NCAA Championships for women's Nordic.  

Kogler's performance was just as dramatic as the women's alpine team. He sat in fifth place after the first run and moved up to win the race, holding off CU's Filip Forejtek by just one-hundredth of a second. Simon Fournier was second after the first run and held onto the podium in third place. Cole Puckett finished eighth as the Pioneer's third scorer. Colby Lane recorded the fastest first run in the field but was disqualified prior to the start of the second run. 

Kogler is certainly peaking at the right time, as he won both the giant slalom qualifier on Thursday along with Saturday's slalom race. He also finished second in Friday's GS race, giving him two wins and a second-place on the same courses as next month's NCAA Championships.   



Amelia Smart won her eighth career race and fourth race of the season. She extends her streak to four straight slalom races and has won all four slalom races she's participated in this season. Klomhaus has also been very impressive on the future NCAA Championship courses, as she has one win and two runner-up finishes the last three days. She has hit the podium five times now in 2020, including three times in slalom races. 

Hensien broke through to get her second career podium and first of the season. Andrea Komsic finished fifth to give DU four of the top five and Eleri Smart finished seventh to give the Pioneers five of the top seven in the race. Komsic got her fifth top-five finish of the season.  

Bernhard Flaschberger led the way for the men's Nordic team with a ninth place finish to open the day with Borgar Norrud taking 12th and OleMarius Kirkeng 13th as the team scorers. Simon Zink finished 23rd, Nick Sweeney 27th and Jimmy Colfer 28th. 

Next up for the Pioneers will be the selection of the NCAA Championship squad, which will be announced early next week. The NCAA Championships will take place March 11-14 back here in Bozeman.  

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