DENVER – Florian Knopf had high hopes of racing on the World Cup stage and competing at the Olympics for the German National Team, but he found himself in an identity crisis of sorts five years ago.
 
He rediscovered himself at the University of Denver and his journey helped him get back onto his competitive trajectory in cross country skiing.
 
"I was early on in the national team and in that structure and wanted to be a World Cup skier and get to the Olympics, and that is what I wanted," Knopf said. "But a big major shift was five years ago when my father suddenly died, and it was also the beginning of COVID, which led to a big identity crisis in a way that I had to find myself first."
 
The Bernau am Chiemsee, Germany, native had participated in five FIS Nordic Junior World Championships with the national team, but he turned his attention to school upon his father's passing. Knopf soon enrolled at the University of Ansbach and completed his undergraduate coursework in international management in late August 2023.
 
A few weeks later, he was in Colorado beginning a two-year master's program at DU.
 
"A journey started that I wanted to keep studying. I loved skiing, but I didn't want to just ski. I needed something else," Knopf said. "I got the opportunity to do college skiing—I didn't know that you could do it for grad school, I always thought it was an undergrad thing. I realized I could do grad school and that is how I ended up in Denver. The moment I talked to [former Nordic head coach] Rogan [Brown] about getting to Denver, I knew I wanted to come."
 
The Pioneers had been on Knopf's radar for several years. He had a scholarship offer from the team in 2019 following a bronze-medal performance in the Junior Worlds but decided to stay in Germany to continue training and attempt to climb the national team ladder.
 
"I didn't see the big picture that's going to help me," Knopf said of his thought process in 2019. "Back then, it was I want to focus on skiing, skiing, skiing. I need to be on the national team to be successful. Just because I needed more time to find my identity."
 
As soon as he stepped onto the DU campus, Knopf was all-in on the college experience and helping the Pioneers perform at their best on the Nordic tracks.
 
He made his mark with Denver as one of the most consistent skiers during the 2024 and 2025 seasons and served as a team captain last winter. Knopf placed in the top 10 in 20-of-24 races across two collegiate campaigns, earned 18 top-five results and placed on the podium 11 times, including eight runner-up finishes.
 
One of those second-place results came at the 2024 NCAA Championships in the 20-kilometer freestyle mass start at Howelsen Hill Ski Area in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
 
That race was among his favorite memories during his time with the Pioneers.
 
"I really loved the NCAA in Steamboat. It was blue skies, a lot of snow, in Colorado, in the altitude," Knopf recalled. "It was amazing; the whole event was really nice. It was definitely one of my favorite events.
 
"But also the trips to Alaska this year were really cool, because that's so far away from me as a German. Coming here and going to Alaska, and we were there for almost three weeks over the winter, that was really amazing to me. We had some training camps in Winter Park in the winter with the whole team, and also in the fall in Keystone. Like all those things when we're traveling together as a team."
 
Knopf finished his college career with two first-team All-American awards, a pair of First-Team All-Conference honors from the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association and was named the RMISA Most Valuable Skier in the men's Nordic classical discipline in 2025.
 
Academically, he earned a 4.0 grade-point average as a grad student and was named to College Sports Communicators' All-American First Team each season—the first DU student-athlete in any sport to earn such an honor multiple times.
 
He credits the consistency on the snow and in the classroom to his time management.
 
"I could handle the school duties with my athletic duties and also rest in-between pretty well. So that was the most important thing for me and finding the right balance of training, for sure," Knopf said. "I definitely did way more now in my second year because I just feel so much more used to the altitude. So I got to know everything better, got to learn everything better, so I think it's more consistency. The consistency in sport, I got it through consistency with balancing school, my private life and athletics in a way. I think I was really good at that."
 
His time at Denver also helped him get back onto the international stage.
 
With just one World Cup start prior to his time at DU back in 2021, Knopf made five starts for the German National Team over the past two seasons. He raced in the 15K freestyle and 20K classic mass start events and two sprint races in Canmore, Alberta, in February 2024 and took part in the 20K classical in the 2024 stop in Davos, Switzerland, this past December.
 
In May, he was named to the German National Men's B Team for the 2025-26 winter season. He's been training with the World Cup squad throughout the summer and the goal for him is to continue to prove himself in order to earn additional World Cup starts this winter and hopefully a spot in February in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
 
"The goal is to get to the Olympics next year. That's the big goal or the big dream I would say," Knopf said. "To get there, you have to do some steps on getting into the World Cup team … In the end, it's going to be like five to six athletes who can make it to the Olympics. I know it's not going to be easy, but I want to fight for it. My biggest advantage I definitely have in front of everyone there is that I have nothing to lose."
 
Knopf might be the underdog in earn a spot on a tough German squad, but he's ready to go all-in to try and reach his Olympic dream.
 
And if he doesn't make it, he'll be content with that as well with a pair of master's degrees from DU in business management and finance to help with his next chapter.
 
"I'm like a free agent who trains, who comes with two master's degrees. I can always quit and start working, and I know I can find a job somewhere," he said. "So I come with a very, very nice background that I'm safe in a way, and I can just go there and go for it. I think that mindset will help me for sure a lot. I'm happy that again, I have nothing to lose."
 
Part of that belief comes from his experience at DU.
 
He trusted the process at Denver as he took the leap of faith to travel across the Atlantic Ocean and come to the base of the Rocky Mountains to study and ski.
 
Maybe his only regret is that he didn't do it sooner.
 
"I know I could move to the U.S. and make it here and have a life here; have great friends, family around to help me here. It's been amazing, and it just gives me confidence—I can go wherever in the world and make it," Knopf said. "I was completely independent by making that decision, and that gives me, personally, a lot of confidence. I love skiing, I love the sport, but I know I have other goals in my life also.
 
"I take skiing serious, for sure, but I also know it's not the most important. I think that's the thing I definitely had to learn here a lot and had to learn the last three years. I'm so happy I see it this way. I enjoy it way more now."
 
Knopf said he has mixed feelings about leaving Denver. It was where he made his home for the past two years, but this place gave him immense individual growth and helped launch him into his next journey.
 
"I think for me, my personal biggest success or accomplishment is that I found myself in Denver again," Knopf said. "I had very tough years before I came to Denver. Also being a professional skier in Germany, and I just wasn't happy there. I really found that I developed mentally, personally, academically, athletically in all ways. I'm leaving Denver better than I ever would have imagined."
 

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