Solbakken Wins GS, Myklebust on Podium to Open RMISA Championships

Friday, February 23

Big Sky, MT

All Day

University of Utah

Giant Slalom

Photo by: Jackson Bilawa/Utah Athletics

Solbakken Wins GS, Myklebust on Podium to Open RMISA Championships

2/23/2024 5:42 PM | Skiing

Results

Mikkel Solbakken won his second giant slalom race in as many days; Utes in third place after the meet's first day

BIG SKY, Mont. – Mikkel Solbakken won his second giant slalom race in as many days, this time atop the RMISA Championships podium as the Utah Ski Team opened up its conference title meet on Friday at Big Sky Resort. The meet also doubles as the NCAA Western Regional.

Utah is third in the team standings after Day One of competition with 147 points—including a meet-leading 90 points in the men's giant slalom. With plenty of racing still to come over the next two days, the Utes are just 24 points out of the lead behind Denver (171) and Colorado (164).

Solbakken (1:52.94) now has three wins and five podiums on the season, while he was joined on Friday's podium with Sindre Myklebust finishing third (1:53.14). It was Myklebust's first collegiate podium result after he had a fourth-place effort in yesterday's GS, which was not part of the RMISA Championships but had individual results count for NCAA qualification purposes.

"The last few days have been really fun for me," Solbakken said. "I am super happy to do well in my last FIS races. I am also excited to compete with such a good team and I am hoping for a nice end to this season."

Myklebust (56.31 seconds) and Solbakken (56.50 seconds) had the two fastest opening runs in the entire field, putting themselves in good position to end the day on the podium. Raphael Lessard (1:55.04) finished top-20 to conclude the scoring for the Utah men, while Oliver Parazette (23^rd), Wilhelm Normannseth (26^th) and Gustav Vøllo (28^th) also competed.

Kaja Norbye was the leading Utah finisher in the women's competition, using a top-five opening run to ultimately take seventh in the final results (1:55.14). Each of Norbye's 11 starts this season have netted a top-10 finish. Claire Timmermann got off to a nice start with the fourth-fastest run before contributing a 13^th place overall result (1:55.93). Making her first conference championship start as a Ute, Kaila Lafreniere raced to 24^th (1:57.74) to earn key points.

Michelle Kervén (26^th) and Melanie Dahlberg (28^th) capped off the Utah lineup in the women's GS.

Next Up
It'll be a full day of action on Saturday for the Utes as the RMISA Championships continue with both slalom and a 7.5K freestyle. The slalom race at Big Sky Resort will be the final alpine event before the NCAA Championships from March 6-9 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Saturday's freestyle will be the first of two Nordic competitions at Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bozeman, Montana. On Sunday, a 20K classic race at Crosscut will wrap up the meet as teams fully turn their focus to NCAAs two weeks from now.

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