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Alpine Ski Teams Return from Nationals

Paul Wojick
March 15, 2001

The alpine ski teams had mixed success at this year's National Championships. Several individuals had outstanding results and both teams did very well in one of the Championship's two events. The field was outstanding, once again, this year, and the race penalties were considerably lower than those at the Division One Championships. As a result, even small mistakes made a big difference.

Joachim Rasmussen (4th in GS, 7th in SL, 5th overall), Emily Nelson (6th in SL, 18th in GS, 7th overall) and Josh Kinzer (10th in GS) were named All-Americans at this year's Championships. Erica Iverson, Emily Nelson, Jennifer Perry, Casey Charlson, and Nate Gruys, were all named Academic All-Americans.

After starting out with a disappointing day of Giant Slalom , with only two finishers, the women's team came back to take 5th in the Slalom. This was good enough to move them into 10th place overall for the Championship. The men did very well in Thursday's GS, finishing fourth, only .24 seconds out of second place, and two seconds out of first. The Oles had hoped to finish second, but in a field this strong, the team felt good about the result.

Saturday's Slalom began well, with the first three skiers finishing their runs in 4th, 16th and 28th places, putting the Oles in second place overall, and leaving them in the hunt for a top two finish in the Championship. The fourth and fifth seed skiers both failed to finish the first run, however, leaving the team in a tenuous position for a second. As the race continued, a small mistake caused one of the skiers to hook the 16th gate, which left the Oles with only two "clean" finishes for the day, in 14th place for the event and in 9th place for the Championship.

While the performance at the National Championships was disappointing, the season was very successful. The Oles repeated as Regional Champions and competed well at some of the country's best races, including 5th place finishes at the University of Colorado Invitational.

Contact Pat Buresh at 507-786-3315 or buresh@stolaf.edu.