Lake Placid, N.Y. — Emilie Cedervärn’s winning streak is over, but she still picked up an eighth consecutive podium finish, coming in third to lead the way for the University of New Mexico ski team as the Lobos are tied for third after the opening day of the NCAA Skiing Championships, being held in Lake Placid, New York.
The standings sort of look like the RMISA/NCAA West Region championships, as Colorado leads with 155 points after winning the men’s freestyle with 82 points, and then getting three top-10 finishes on the women’s side. Utah is next with 131 points after Veronika Mayerhoffer won her fourth race of the season to tie Cedervärn for the RMISA lead. UNM is tied with Vermont for third with 106 points. Denver is lurking in fifth with 93 points and Dartmouth is sixth with 88.
In the men’s 10K Nordic race, the Lobos didn’t get any top-10 finishes, but they were awfully close. Aku Nikander and Christian Otto missed top 10 finishes by 2.0 and 5.0 second respectively, finishing 11th and 13th, picking up 38 points between the two of them. Otto, a late replacement for the ill Aljaz Praznik, recorded his career-best finish in the NCAAs in the freestyle with his 13th place finish.
Mats Resaland recovered from a poor start which saw him in 33rd after the first lap to finish 23rd, gaining UNM six more points for 46 as the men took fourth overall in the race.
On the women’s side, Cedervärn earned First Team All-America status with her third place finish, and Sever Rus, the defending champion in the freestyle, was a Second Team All-American, finishing eighth. Cedervärn got on the podim by less than a tenth of a second, while the difference for Sever Rus between eighth and fifth was 1.1 seconds. That swing was worth six points.
Jessica Gnüchtel finished 28th, and the women’s side picked up 60 points, good for third in the race.
“I’m really happy for Emilie and Eva. They skied really well in a race that was pretty fast,” said head coach Fredrik Landstedt. “Christian picked up some important points, and I think Aku and Mats will do even better on Friday.”
The Nordics now get a day to recover as the scene shifts from Mt. Van Hoevenberg to Whiteface Mountain and the alpine giant slalom.
The women’s giant slalom will start at 9 a.m. Eastern (7 Mountain) and will run to completion before the men’s race starts at noon Eastern. On the women’s side for UNM, Mateja Robnik had five finishes in the GS in the top four this season, including a win, and she never finished below 13th. Sydney Staples had four top 10s and Sara Ottosson was eighth in her last outing.
On the men’s side, Juho-Pekka Penttinen and Sean Horner combined for 11 top-20 finishes in 12 total giant slaloms, and Carl-Johan Öster was 18th at RMISAs. There are a total of 34 alpine skiers in each of the two divisions, with the top 30 earning points.
The site of the 1932 and 1980 Olympics, day one of the championships consisted of the men’s 10K and women’s 5K freestyle races, with an interval start of 30 seconds for each skier. Overall there were 40 skiers in each race. The top four teams are recognized with hardware by the NCAA at the conclusion of the four day event.
NOTES: Otto’s only other finish that was better than 13th was 12th in the Classical at the 2011 NCAAs … Otto now has 967 career points, meaning he would need a podium finish to break 1,000 points … Cedervärn’s third place finish was only the third podium finish in the discipline for the ladies in the last 14 years (Sever Rus, 1st in 2014, Martina Stursova, 3rd in 2007) … UNM didn’t record a men’s All-America finish (top 10) in the freestyle for just the second time since 2009 (2012 saw no top 10s).