Athletics & Recreation / Magazine Feature

DU takes second place at NCAA ski championships

Sophomore Adam Cole won his second individual title of the 2007 NCAA National Championships with a victory in the slalom March 10, helping the Pioneers to a second place finish.

Dartmouth held on to win its third national team title with 698 points, becoming the first Eastern team to win since Vermont in 1994, and the Big Green’s first since tying Colorado in 1976. Denver was second with 648 points and Colorado was third with 592.

“We’re very pleased with second place,” says DU Alpine Head Coach Andy LeRoy. “To come here with 11 skiers and perform as well as we did, we are very proud of all the athletes. We congratulate everybody on Dartmouth, who came in here and did everything they needed to do to win.”

Cole became the first DU skier to win both the slalom and giant slalom at a championship. Joining Cole in the top-10 of the men’s alpine were sophomore Francesco Ghedina in fifth and sophomore John Buchar in seventh.

Sophomore Claire Abbe earned first-team All-American honors with a fifth-place finish in the women’s slalom. Junior Karine Falck-Pedersen came in 17th and sophomore Jenny Tank was 30th.

Between Thursday’s giant slalom and Saturday’s slalom, all six Pioneers’ skiers earned either first or second-team All-American honors.

The scoring format of the championship changed this year to count all skiers for all teams. From 1997–2006, only 21 results were counted. According to championship statisticians, had the scoring format remained the same, Dartmouth and Denver would have shared the title with 638 points and CU would have remained in third with 564.

DU First-Team All-Americans:
Claire Abbe
Annelise Bailly
John Buchar
Adam Cole
Francesco Ghedina
Rene Reisshauer
Jenny Tank

DU Second-Team All-Americans:
Karine Falck-Pedersen
John Stene

Comments are closed.