Featured Image: Sara Rask at NCAA Championships. Credit: Stephen Cloutier, Press Release provided by DU Athletics.
Reigning national champion back for a fourth season
DENVER – University of Denver skiing announced today that reigning women’s alpine national champion Sara Rask will return to the Pioneers for her final year of collegiate skiing and pursue a master’s degree in accounting, technology and analytics in 2026.
“I am very excited to come back and get the opportunity to race for DU for another season,” Rask said. “I’m very grateful for all of the work put in by the school’s administration, athletic director Josh Berlo and the Denver coaches to further my academic and skiing career with the Pioneers. I can’t wait to go for the team’s 25th NCAA Championship next year.”
Rask swept the women’s alpine events at the NCAA Championship this past season, winning both slalom and giant slalom to become the 19th Pioneer and sixth DU woman to sweep at the collegiate nationals. She was the first Denver skier to sweep since Amelia Smart did it as a freshman in women’s alpine in 2018.
The Stockholm, Sweden, native also swept the slalom events in 2025, winning all seven races in the discipline. Rask owns 15 career victories, which ranks fifth overall in DU skiing history and is the third-most among women’s alpine skiers in the school’s annals. She has placed in the top 10 in 38-of-41 career races and on the podium 27 times.
“We are thrilled that Sara is returning for another season and excited to see her continue to build upon her legacy as a Pioneer,” said Joonas Rasanen, the Denver Otto Tschudi Head Alpine Skiing Coach. “Thank you to Josh Berlo, Jason Kesner and our school’s administration for their support of our program and the student-athlete experience. Sara is a tremendous student-athlete and person, and we know she will do all she can to help us reach our ultimate goal of bringing the national championship back to Denver.”
Rask’s victories in March at the NCAAs in Dartmouth and Hanover, New Hampshire, marked the 96th and 97th individual national championships in DU skiing history and the 129th and 130th individual national titles in Denver athletics history. It was the first individual national skiing championship by a Pioneer since Katie Hensien in 2022 in slalom and her giant slalom victory was the first in the discipline since Storm Klomhaus did it 2020.
Entering this year’s nationals as the top qualifying skier from the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association, Rask earned her third-straight and fourth overall Most Valuable Skier Award from the conference, earning the honor in women’s slalom. She also picked up her second career NCAA West Regional Championship and first in women’s slalom on Feb. 22 at Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska.
Rask owns six career All-American awards—five of which are first-team honors—and has been named to the All-RMISA First Team in each of her three seasons. She was named the 2024-25 Denver Athletics Female Student-Athlete of the Year and served as a team captain for the ski team this past campaign.
A three-time member of the National Collegiate All-Academic Ski Team (2023, 2024, 2025), Rask graduated from Denver last week with a bachelor’s degree in business analytics.
Rask joined the Pioneers prior to the 2023 season after competing for her home club Sollentuna Slalomklubb and the Swedish Ski Association. She owns 23 career FIS Alpine World Cup starts, won the FIS Alpine Junior World Championships in giant slalom in 2020 and was the top U18 skier in slalom at the 2018 Junior Worlds. A former Swedish National Champion, she placed third overall in slalom this past April at the 2025 U.S. Alpine National Championships in Vail, Colorado.
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