Utah Moves in Front at RMISA Invitational’s Giant Slalom

Sunday, January 23

Park City, Utah

All Day

University of Utah

Giant Slalom

Kaja Norbye - 2022 RMISA Invitational (GS)

Photo by: Ryan Gallant

Utah Moves in Front at RMISA Invitational’s Giant Slalom

1/23/2022 6:21 PM | Skiing

Results Photo Gallery

Utes at Park City again on Monday for another GS day within Utah Invitational

PARK CITY, Utah – Making the team's college season debut on its home hill, Utah skiing had two podium performances in giant slalom and the Utes pulled to the top of the team standings on day two of the RMISA Invitational at Park City Mountain Resort on Sunday.

The Utes will be back at Park City on both Monday and Tuesday, Jan. 24-25, transitioning to the Utah Invitational in both giant slalom (Monday) and slalom (Tuesday) disciplines. Each day's first run will take place at approximately 9 a.m. and fans can watch from the base of Eagle Lift.

On Sunday it was Kaja Norbye and Joachim Lien each claiming second for Utah in the women's and men's GS races, respectively. It included a win for Norbye in her first run of the day, before Norbye turned in the fourth-best run of the field in the afternoon. Lien's morning performance ranked fifth-best, and his final run was second en route to the men's podium.

"Everyone's a little stressed and a little beat up from the grind of late," said head alpine coach JJ Johnson. "But today we looked like we hadn't missed a beat and skied phenomenal today. Katie Parker was great again, she's in such a good spot. Kaja today was probably the most confident I've seen her—she's starting to find that form that she knows she has. Madison Hoffman skis very smart, and will be looking to find some more speed for the next couple weeks."

Three other Utes broke into the top-nine in the women's competition behind Norbye's first collegiate podium—which was just four-hundredths of a second behind winner Katie Hensein of Denver. The top-nine Utes included Hoffman (fifth), Parker (seventh) and Sona Moravcikova (ninth). Hoffman has finished top-five three times this season across both alpine disciplines, Parker in the top-10 three times, and Moravcikova in the top-10 twice.

For the men, Utah had a 2-5-6 scoring result which saw Lien, Gustav Vøllo and Wilhelm Normannseth lead the way in that order. Bjorn Brudevoll just missed the top-10 finishing 12^th.

"Joachim Lien has been beat up [coming back from injury], and still with little training went pretty tough today and skied hard," Johnson said. "He's starting to find his form again. Gustav changed equipment this year and is starting to figure that out—he has a lot more in the tank. Wilhelm Normannseth keeps climbing up there…that depth is pretty cool."

Vøllo placed fourth in both runs of the day, putting the Utah men as the only squad of the day with multiple skiers in the top-five of both runs.

In the RMISA Invitational team standings, Utah now leads the pack at 333 points for the meet, with a 26-point pad on Denver in second place. Sunday's GS races continued the meet following the slalom, which took place on Thursday in Bozeman, Montana and put the Utes ranked third.

With the Utah Invitational set to resume in Park City Monday, the Utes also begin the alpine half of that meet in the team lead (349 points), holding 16 points on Alaska Anchorage. That lead carries over from Nordic races, held earlier this month at Soldier Hollow.

Follow Utah skiing on social media (@utahskiteam).