ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — There is a little bit of old and a little bit of new as the 2019 UNM ski season begins in earnest in Colorado as the team heads north to take on RMISA foes at the Colorado Invitational. The meet will open on Wednesday, January 9 with the first of two RMISA giant slalom qualifiers in which no team scores are kept. It’s main function is an extra opportunity for skiers to earn qualification points for the NCAA Championships at the end of the season.
All alpine races at the Colorado Invitational will be available at www.live-timing.com.
On Thursday, January 10, the Invitational begins with the giant slalom, followed by the slalom race on Friday. On Friday evening, an exhibition dual slalom race will be held, which does not count towards any team scoring. The Nordic portion of the meet begins on Saturday, Jan. 12, with the women’s 5-km and men’s 10-km freestyle races with the men’s and women’s 10-km classic races on Sunday, Jan. 13. The alpine races will be held at Eldora Mountain Resort with the Nordic races in Steamboat Springs, Colo. In previous years, the alpine races have been contested at Mount Werner and Howelson Hill.
The Lobos have a new coach for the first time in 11 years, but he’s not really new. Joe Downing, who enters his seventh year as the head alpine coach, took over as the interim head coach of the program earlier in the school year when Fredrik Landstedt left to become director of skiing at Utah. Christian Otto was also elevated to head Nordic coach. Downing and Otto have 11 new skiers in the stable, five on the alpine side and six on the Nordic side. Among those 11 new skiers are two 2018 Winter Olympians. Ben Berend joins the team as a senior and he represented the United States in the Nordic Combined in Pyeongcheng. On the women’s side, Soňa Moravčíková represented Slovakia in the 2018 Olympics, competing in the giant slalom and downhill.
There are three newcomers in each discipline, except for men’s alpine, in which there are just two newcomers in Thomas Anderson and Olav Sanderberg. However UNM returned more men’s alpine skiers than at any other position, lead by Vegard Busengdal. The All-American had a pair of wins last year, including the RMISA slalom title. Additionally, Tyler Theis returned after qualifying for his second NCAA Championship. Joining them are three-year letterwinners Alex Barounos and Nick Veth. On the women’s side, along with Moravčíková, Chloe Margue and Antonia Wearmouth both were highly decorated as junior skiers. They join a women’s alpine squad that returns all three NCAA qualifiers from a year ago.
Katharine Irwin finished second in the NCAA giant slalom and also won twice on the circuit in 2018, and is an national title contender again, just like Busengdal. Also back s sophomores are Rebecca Fiegl and Hailey Cutler.
Only two Nordic skiers returned in Ricardo Izquierdo-Bernier on the men’s side and Brenna Egan on the women’s side. They are each joined by three newcomers. For the men, along with Berend is Kornelius Grøv and Johan Eirik Meland. For the women, along with Egan is Savanna Fassio, Daria Kuznetsova and Julie Spets.