DENVER – Sara Rask of the University of Denver ski team was named the award winner for skiing by Sportswomen of Colorado for her performance during the 2025 season.
 
Rask joins a wide-ranging class of women's athletes that also included basketball, soccer, volleyball, swimming and numerous track and field disciplines, multiple national champions, record breakers, All Americans and other special awards.
 
The Denver graduate student will be honored at Sportswomen of Colorado's 52nd Awards Celebration on March 8 at the Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center.
 
Rask swept the women's slalom and giant slalom events at the 2025 NCAA Championships in Dartmouth, New Hampshire, last March and also swept the slalom races during the collegiate season, winning all seven such events. Overall, she totaled eight individual victories, placed on the podium 10 times and had 12 top-10 finishes in 14 colleges races last season.
 
The Stockholm, Sweden, native became the 19th DU skier to sweep collegiate nationals (sixth woman) and first since Amelia Smart also did it in women's alpine in 2018. It marked the third straight year that a college skier swept the women's alpine races at the NCAA Championships, as Rask joins Colorado's Magdelena Luczak in 2024 and Utah's Madison Hoffman in 2023. Her slalom victory at the NCAA was the first by a Pioneer since Katie Hensien in 2022 while Storm Klomhaus was the last Denver athlete to win giant slalom in 2020.
 
Rask entered last year's national championships as the top qualifier from the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association and was named RMISA's 2025 Most Valuable Skier in women's slalom, marking her fourth career conference MVP award. She picked up her first career NCAA West Regional title in slalom at the RMISA Championships before claiming her fifth and sixth career All-American awards at nationals. She was recognized last fall as the Female Collegiate Athlete of the Year by the Colorado Snowsports Museum and Hall of Fame.
 
While also serving as the women's alpine team captain, Rask was named to the National Collegiate All-Academic Ski Team for the third consecutive season and was recognized as both a Collegiate Sports Communicators' Academic All-America First Team and Academic All-District member in 2024-25.
 
Entering the 2026 season, Rask had earned 38 top 10s while picking up 31 top-five finishes and 27 podiums in 41 collegiate races. She presently owns 17 career wins, tied for the second-most in DU skiing history and one away from tying the record of 18 by Roberta Pergher of women's alpine (1996-1998).
 
Sportswomen of Colorado was founded in 1974 and is a community-based organization that promotes, honors and empowers Colorado girls and women in sport by celebrating excellence, supporting participation, eliminating barriers and connecting female athletes, coaches and contributors across all levels in the state. They achieve this through their annual awards, sports camp scholarships, satellite sports clinics led by women's collegiate teams, and by raising the visibility of women's athletic achievements.
 

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