Utah Wins Nevada Invitational

Tuesday, February 3

Reno, Nev. / Mount Rose Ski Tahoe

University of Utah

Giant Slalom

2/3/2026 4:31 PM | Skiing

Results

Utes tally four top-10 giant slalom performances on final day of meet

RENO, Nev. – The Utah Ski Team placed four athletes in the respective men's and women's top-10 on Tuesday as the Utes capped off a team victory in the Nevada Invitational with giant slalom races at Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe.

Helped by strong turnouts in Sunday's slaloms, Utah finished the meet with 317 points to take the top spot in the team standings. Colorado was eight points back at 309 with Denver (288) rounding out the top three squads in the eight-team, alpine-only meet.

The Utes were led in Tuesday's GS races by a fifth-place performance on the women's side from Melanie Dahlberg, while Sindre Myklebust and Johs Braathen Herland went 5-6 in the men's competition.

"For how things have been building up for us this year, to win an alpine-only meet was so fun," said head alpine coach JJ Johnson. "And to do it with just three guys—everyone had to finish—was good. Colorado was fast today, but we had enough. The vibes were super high for our team. We had a lot of stuff this week between the podium for Christina, Melanie getting a win and some of the girls plus Sindre getting up there. We won the meet as a team, but if you look at everything that everyone did this week, we needed all of it."

Men's Race
Helped by a top-four second run, Sindre Myklebust climbed up from eighth place to fifth in the final results with a total time of 1:57.48. It was his fifth top-10 of the season. Johs Braathen Herland was right behind Myklebust in sixth (1:57.55) and Harry Hoffman took 11^th (1:58.74).

Utah's 77 points put the Utes second overall for the men's giant slalom but Colorado pulled away in the event with a sweep of the podium.

Women's Race
Melanie Dahlberg led the way for Utah on the women's side in a top-five finish (2:00.90), taking that spot with a cushion of two-hundredths of a second. Kaila Lafreniere recorded a season-best 10^th place (2:01.49) and Christina Jacobsen took 11^th (2:01.60) to close out the team's scoring in the women's race.

Utah was also bolstered in the lineup by Maddie Kaiserman's 19^th place finish. Maisie Blyth also started but was unable to finish the second run.

Johnson added, "Melanie continues to do her thing, but we also had all five of our girls in the top-15 after the first run. To see them all gaining confidence and feeling it is really cool. And Kaila is showing that she's starting to get rolling."

Next Up
The Utes will now turn the stage back over to the Nordic team as Utah prepares for the Denver Invitational. Utah is currently in third place in the Denver Invitational at the halfway point of that meet. Nordic races this weekend will take place at Frisco Nordic Center in Frisco, Colorado, and are set to include a 10K classic mass start (Feb. 7) and 7.5K freestyle interval start (Feb. 8).

Alpine returns to action from Feb. 22-24 when the Utes host that portion of the Utah Invitational. All three race days will go down from the Spencer F. Eccles Olympic Mountain Center at the Utah Olympic Park. Additional information on the races will be shared soon.

Follow the Utah Ski Team on social media @utahskiteam. Download the Utah 360 app here.