DENVER – Sara Rask wasn't quite ready to call it a career on the collegiate skiing circuit.
So when she was granted an additional year of eligibility from the NCAA, the women's alpine skier happily seized the chance to return to the University of Denver for a final season.
"A true senior season; I will have a whole year where I'll know it's my last year, and it kind of makes you appreciate it a little differently when you know it's coming to an end," Rask said. "Denver has been my home the last three years, and I just really love it here. I love my team, I love the school, the professors, everyone on the athletic side, and it feels really great to get to spend one more year with everyone."
Now a graduate student, Rask had a storybook campaign last season with the Pioneers. She placed in the top 10 in 12-of-14 races, won each of the seven slalom events and closed the collegiate campaign by sweeping the women's alpine races at the NCAA Championships—claiming individual national titles in both slalom and giant slalom.
Her eight total victories were the most in a single season for her and brought her career total to 15, which ranks fifth all-time in Denver skiing history and third among the school's women's alpine skiers. She was the 19th DU skier to sweep collegiate nationals (sixth woman) and first since Amelia Smart also did it in women's alpine in 2018, and her victory in GS at the national championships was the first by a Pioneer since Storm Klomhaus in 2020.
The 2024-25 campaign was a year that she went all-in on—with her skiing, as a leader and in academics. In addition to serving as the ski team's women's alpine team captain, she finished her undergraduate studies with a 3.97 grade-point average to earn 2025 Academic All-America First Team honors from the Collegiate Sports Communicators while also being named to the National Collegiate All-Academic Ski Team for the third straight year.
"Every season is kind of unique in its own way. I feel like this season was my first season as a team captain, which I felt it more than I thought I would. I think this was the year I worked the hardest in school ever," Rask recollected. "Being a senior, it was a lot more work, but I still had one of my best seasons ever. Working hard in other stuff, it kind of offsets what you do in skiing because school is so much about putting information in your head and skiing is the opposite because I just don't want to think about anything. So I think that is why it works. I've had so much fun this season, like every season."
The Stockholm, Sweden, native joined Denver in 2023 following a stint with her country's national team where she made 23 FIS World Cup starts.
She quickly made a name for herself in her first year on the circuit with six wins, 11 podiums and top-10 finishes in all 13 races. The Swede presently owns 23 podium placements and 38 top-10s in 41 career NCAA races.
Rask also fell in love with the culture of the sport at the college level.
"Everyone I've met around the tour, they're just so hard working and passionate people," she noted of her teammates and fellow competitors in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association. "I think it's very unique because it's not easy to juggle college academics with a competitive skiing program, but everyone here does it so well. They do all this college stuff, and they don't complain. They go out and work, and it's just a very inspiring culture. That is what makes it so unique to me."
While initially only being given three years of eligibility due to her age, options presented itself for her to continue skiing at the college level.
Rask began exploring the possibility of getting an additional season of eligibility at Denver from the NCAA in summer 2024, and it turned into a nearly year-long process in collecting data and submitting requests to the national governing body.
Finally in the "11th hour" in early June and just days before she was set to walk across the stage at DU to receive her bachelor's degree in business analytics, Rask learned that the NCAA had approved her appeal for one final year with the Pioneers.
"It was a roller coaster in my head because I was going back and forth with hope that I could get another year and then thinking I wasn't and then getting some new hope," she said. "Juggling all of that while graduating with my undergrad degree and having to plan for, am I moving out? Should I give up my room in my house to someone else? And if I move out, where do I go? So there was a lot of things floating in the air, and I couldn't really start looking ahead until I knew. Now that I finally know, it feels so good that I can finally make a plan and start putting some action to it."
That clarity has allowed her to now fully appreciate everything that happens on and off the snow in a final college season. She is earning her master's degree in accounting, technology and analytics—a program she was excited to take at DU—while also putting her focus on defending her crown as the queen of NCAA alpine skiing.
It might be tough for Rask to duplicate the success she accomplished last year, but she also has her eyes on an additional piece of hardware—a 25th team national championship that has alluded her and the program since she first strapped on the bindings for the Pios three years ago.
"Do it all again--with the whole team," Rask noted of her 2026 aspirations. "I think we have such a good team, and we have so great capacity and we just got to figure out a way to put all the pieces together when it matters.
"We have a good chance."
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