Colorado Claims Denver Invitational

Sunday, February 9, 2025 • by Curtis Snyder, RMISA

MINTURN, Colo.—The Colorado Buffaloes racked up an impressive 740 points and won the Denver Invitational by 106.5 points with the Nordic races at Maloit Park closing out the meet.

The Buffs 740 points came off of its alpine teams scoring 379 to open the alpine season and then the CU Nordic squads picked up another 361 for the total of 740. It's the fifth-highest point total of the current scoring system and the best for the Buffaloes.

Saturday's races saw the 7.5K classic interval start take center stage and Utah's Erica Laven took home first place in impressive fashion, winning by 22.8 seconds over a pair of Buffaloes with Tilde Baangman taking second and Hanna Abrahamsson third to round out the podium and the Buffs also had fifth place Astri Lunde who came in after Denver's Lea Wenaas, as CU extended the lead it's alpine teams built about a month previous.

The CU men continued the trend with Johannes Flaaten taking the win, his first career victory, by 8.8 seconds over Utah's Zachary Jayne. DU actually won the race by placing five skiers in the top nine with Florian Knopf taking third and Andreas Kirkeng fifth while the Utes' Carl Rune took fourth.

With pursuit races the rule of the day, Denver's Weenas had the best day in the women's 10K freestyle race, overtaking Baangman after Laven didn't race to pick up a win. Baangman did hang on for second place and Lunde moved up from fifth to pick up a podium in third place. Utah's Selma Nevin finished fourth and MSU's Anna Pryce rounded out the top 5.

In the closest race of the season, Jayne and Flaaten battled all race and in the end Jayne won by just a tenth of a second in a near photo finish. Knopf hung on for his second straight podium in third place and two more Pioneers Elijah Weenig and Krystof Zatloukal rounded out the top five as the Pioneers put another impressive performance together.

Teams now head to Alaska where the Nordic teams will compete in the UAF Invitational and the alpine teams close out the UAA Invitational before both compete at the RMISA Championships.