Vøllo Repeats Runner-Up Result in Slalom; Utes Lead NCAA Championships Entering Final Day

Friday, March 11

Park City, Utah

All Day

University of Utah

Slalom

Gustav Vollo - 2022 NCAA Championships SL

Photo by: Nick Grace

Vøllo Repeats Runner-Up Result in Slalom; Utes Lead NCAA Championships Entering Final Day

3/11/2022 5:39 PM | Skiing

Results Photo Gallery

Trio of All-America awards go to Utah in slalom racing at Park City Mountain Resort

PARK CITY, Utah – For the second straight day, Utah junior Gustav Vøllo finished as a national runner-up as the Utes had three All-America honorees in slalom at the NCAA Championships, hosted at Park City Mountain Resort. Heading into the final day of competition, two-time defending national champion Utah sits atop the team standings with 405 points and a 27.5-point lead on Vermont for second place.

Vøllo earned All-America First Team accolades as a result of his performance. Also earning All-America citations for the Utes were senior Joachim Lien (eighth place) and freshman Kaja Norbye (sixth place), receiving Second Team in the men's and women's slalom, respectively.

Vøllo now owns three career All-America honors, Lien has five, and it's the second for Norbye in as many championship starts.

"The slalom day is always the most stressful, but the guys again positioned themselves," said head alpine coach JJ Johnson. "They didn't have the best start numbers, from a couple DNFs this year, but Gustav just keeps coming on strong, to do that in the second run, just starting to find the form and trust in his new equipment, it was so cool to see. And Joachim just keeps doing his thing. He was a couple hundredths out of fifth, and I don't know if he's been out of the top 8 in any NCAA Championships. And Wilhelm struggled a little bit in the first run, and then just did exactly what he needed to do. The snow was perfect and they always seem to compete and do their job every time, so that's really cool.

"And the girls, same thing, positioned well…Sona had that little issue on the first run, and Kaja and Katie were right in position. Once Katie went out in the second run, and had to hike, it changed the whole thing. So Kaja really came through in the end. It was a little stressful but they just go back to simple thoughts, and go."

Vøllo did a nice job to climb the ranks after a seventh-place opening run (53.58 seconds), coming back in the afternoon with the second-best time of the field at 1:00.39 to rise to the final runner-up spot—his best slalom finish of the season. Lien was 12^th in the afternoon, but aided by an eighth-place performance in the morning (53.66) to remain in the group of All-America honorees. Wilhelm Normannseth closed it out for the Utah men in 13^th place on the day.

"I kind of had the same mentality as I had yesterday," Vøllo said. "I was in sixth place after the first run yesterday, and really felt I was close to the podium, so I had all the opportunity to just bring a good run and take it all the way up to the podium. I'm really happy it worked out. I feel like I've had probably my two best days skiing, at least this season, and probably my whole college career here. To bring it out on these two days is really amazing."

Norbye powered the women with two solid runs on the day, finishing eighth and seventh in the morning and afternoon, respectively. Sona Moravcikova placed 22^nd and Katie Parker was 26^th to round out the Utes.

Course navigation proved difficult at times for several skiers across multiple teams, leading to occasional hiking back onto the course.

"I'm very happy with my result today," Norbye commented. "Before I skied my second run, I knew that my other teammates had some trouble down there, so I knew I had to come down and finish strong, which I feel like I managed to do. So I'm super happy with what I did."

With Utah holding the overall lead in the meet, the focus now turns back to Soldier Hollow for the final day of the 2022 NCAA Championships, consisting of 15/20K freestyle mass start racing. The Utes will look to carry the momentum of Thursday's classic races, which landed three skiers in the top six of the women's race highlighted by individual national champion Novie McCabe. The men's 20K freestyle is set for a 9:30 a.m. start, with the women's 15K to follow at 11:30 a.m.

Said director of skiing Fredrik Landstedt of the alpine season, "Alpine has been incredible. This year JJ and Mary Joyce did an incredible job, and the whole team has really been doing the perfect job out there, and that's to score the necessary points. They've come together as a team, and that's what makes a winning group. It's just that team spirit and team-first. It's not about the individual glory, it's all about scoring the points necessary to win. It's just been incredible watching the Alpiners."

Landstedt continued and looked ahead to Saturday's freestyle, "Tomorrow will be very exciting out there. It's going to be sunny and pretty warm, but still going to be pretty fast skiing. The men take off at 9:30 and that's going to be a battle. The men are pretty tactical; they're going to stay together in a big group, probably until pretty late in the race, and somewhere in the race somebody is going to look to break off. They'll ski six laps over a 3.3-kilometer course. It's very exciting how they'll come around all the time. So that will be a great race. After that, at 11:30 the women's race, and we have a very strong women's team, so it's going to be fun watching them and see what they can do. It's a long race, and if you start out hard you can fall apart and get passed by a lot of people, so it's also very tactical."

Follow the Utah ski team on social media (@utahskiteam).