Featured Picture: Sara Rask at NCAA Championships. Credit score: Stephen Cloutier, Press Launch offered by DU Athletics.
Reigning nationwide champion again for a fourth season
DENVER – College of Denver snowboarding introduced at present that reigning girls’s alpine nationwide champion Sara Rask will return to the Pioneers for her last 12 months of collegiate snowboarding and pursue a grasp’s diploma in accounting, expertise and analytics in 2026.
“I’m very excited to return again and get the chance to race for DU for an additional season,” Rask stated. “I’m very grateful for all the work put in by the varsity’s administration, athletic director Josh Berlo and the Denver coaches to additional my educational and snowboarding profession with the Pioneers. I can’t wait to go for the staff’s twenty fifth NCAA Championship subsequent 12 months.”
Rask swept the ladies’s alpine occasions on the NCAA Championship this previous season, successful each slalom and large slalom to change into the nineteenth Pioneer and sixth DU girl to comb on the collegiate nationals. She was the primary Denver skier to comb since Amelia Sensible did it as a freshman in girls’s alpine in 2018.
The Stockholm, Sweden, native additionally swept the slalom occasions in 2025, successful all seven races within the self-discipline. Rask owns 15 profession victories, which ranks fifth general in DU snowboarding historical past and is the third-most amongst girls’s alpine skiers within the faculty’s annals. She has positioned within the high 10 in 38-of-41 profession races and on the rostrum 27 occasions.
“We’re thrilled that Sara is returning for an additional season and excited to see her proceed to construct upon her legacy as a Pioneer,” stated Joonas Rasanen, the Denver Otto Tschudi Head Alpine Snowboarding Coach. “Thanks to Josh Berlo, Jason Kesner and our college’s administration for his or her help of our program and the student-athlete expertise. Sara is an incredible student-athlete and individual, and we all know she is going to do all she will be able to to assist us attain our final objective of bringing the nationwide championship again to Denver.”
Rask’s victories in March on the NCAAs in Dartmouth and Hanover, New Hampshire, marked the 96th and 97th particular person nationwide championships in DU snowboarding historical past and the 129th and a hundred and thirtieth particular person nationwide titles in Denver athletics historical past. It was the primary particular person nationwide snowboarding championship by a Pioneer since Katie Hensien in 2022 in slalom and her large slalom victory was the primary within the self-discipline since Storm Klomhaus did it 2020.
Coming into this 12 months’s nationals as the highest qualifying skier from the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Affiliation, Rask earned her third-straight and fourth general Most Invaluable Skier Award from the convention, incomes the dignity in girls’s slalom. She additionally picked up her second profession NCAA West Regional Championship and first in girls’s slalom on Feb. 22 at Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska.
Rask owns six profession All-American awards—5 of that are first-team honors—and has been named to the All-RMISA First Workforce in every of her three seasons. She was named the 2024-25 Denver Athletics Feminine Pupil-Athlete of the 12 months and served as a staff captain for the ski staff this previous marketing campaign.
A 3-time member of the Nationwide Collegiate All-Tutorial Ski Workforce (2023, 2024, 2025), Rask graduated from Denver final week with a bachelor’s diploma in enterprise analytics.
Rask joined the Pioneers previous to the 2023 season after competing for her residence membership Sollentuna Slalomklubb and the Swedish Ski Affiliation. She owns 23 profession FIS Alpine World Cup begins, received the FIS Alpine Junior World Championships in large slalom in 2020 and was the highest U18 skier in slalom on the 2018 Junior Worlds. A former Swedish Nationwide Champion, she positioned third general in slalom this previous April on the 2025 U.S. Alpine Nationwide Championships in Vail, Colorado.
