RMISA GIant Slalom Qualifier | Utah Invitational Women’s 10K & Men’s 15K Freestyle
PARK CITY, Utah & BIG SKY, Mont. — A pair of newcomers led the way for The University of New Mexico’s Nordic teams and Krista Niiranen earned a podium finish with a second place showing and Arnaud Guyon was third for his first podium as New Mexico sits fourth after two events of the University of Utah Invitational. The women’s race was a 10K freestyle and the men’s was a 15K freestyle.
While the Nordic teams were in Utah for the first half of the Utah Invitational, the alpine squads were in Big Sky, Montana and Big Sky Ski Resort for the RMISA giant slalom qualifier, an event which is used for NCAA qualification. The alpine squads will compete in the MSU Invitational tomorrow with the giant slalom.
The Nordic races were run as a part of the U.S National Championships with RMISA results pulled out to get meet scores for the Utah Invitational. For Niiranen, who excelled in the preseason in the sprint races, she finished 10th overall at the National Championships, but was second to Petra Hyncicova of Colorado, coming in just 2.4 second behind her time in the 10K interval classic race.
Niiranen scored 37 points for UNM, which helped the team come in third overall in the women’s race with 71 total points. Colorado had 90 to win the event with Utah second with 75.
“We got very good races from Krista and Arnaud today,” said head coach Fredrik Landstedt. “Kati is still recovering from a sickness and did well, and Petteri had the stomach flu last weekend. Hopefully we will get healthy and better as a team for the Montana races next week.”
Collegiately for UNM, Kati Roivas, who earned All-America status last year in the 15K classical, came in 11th to score 21 points, and another newcomer Julie Ensrud was 20th overall to score 13. Four-time All-American Eva Sever Rus came in 21st, marking just the third time in her four-year career she did not score for UNM. Brenna Egan was 33rd and Julia Devaux was 37th in her first official race back from last year’s leg injury that required surgery.
On the men’s side, the Lobos got a podium first from Arnaud Guyon in his first collegiate race to pick up 34 points and help UNM finish third in the men’s race. Guyon The Lobos also got two other top-20 finishes with Petteri Vaherkoski finishing 16th and Aljaž Praznik coming in 20th. Vaherkoski scored 16 points and Praznik 14. Other Lobo finishers were Niklas Rombock in 28th and Kyle Beling 29th.
Overall, Guyon’s third place finish equaled the total amount of podium finishes for the men’s Nordic squad last year, a great sign for the season. Last year the Lobos had just one podium finish at the Utah Invitational, meaning with still six events to go, UNM has already surpassed last year’s total for the event.
In the alpine qualifiers, it was a good day if your last name began with a “B” for the Lobos. Newcomer Vegard Busengdal came in eighth among RMISA skiers, with teammate Alex Barounos coming in 16th, his career-best finish and first career top-20. Patrick Brancher rounded out the trio of top-20s for UNM, coming in 18th. The only other finisher was Nick Veth, who came in 27th, two spots off his career best.
Rob Greig didn’t finish his second run, and Tyler Theis and Isak Klein didn’t finish their opening runs.
On the women’s side, Katharine Irwin was the top finisher in 16th place, with Sydney Staples tying for 22nd. Alexandra Sjöström came in 26th and Taylor Grauer was 27th. Karoline Søvik
Myklebust was sitting pretty in third place after the opening run, but she DNF’ed in her second run, costing her a potential podium finish.
The Utah Invitational will continue on Sunday with an event that hasn’t been an official RMISA event in nearly 30 years, as all the teams will compete in classical sprints. For RMISA scoring, only the qualifying score will count towards RMISA points and Utah Invitational scoring. However, skiers will be advancing to semifinal and final heats.
For the alpine squads, the Montana State Invitational will officially begin tomorrow with the giant slalom.
Alpine live timing will be available at www.live-timing.com while Nordic live timing will be available at www.summittiming.com, and updates will be posted on Twitter at www.unmskiing.com