NCAA Skiing: Two CU national champs, one pair of skis

When University of Colorado student Reid Pletcher crossed the finish line first in the men`s 20K classical at the NCAA Skiing Championships in Stowe, Vt., last week, it was the second time that day that a Buff raced those skis to a win.

Earlier, Eliska Hajkova won a sprint to finish first in the women`s 15K classical on the same skis. She didn`t know it until she greeted him at the finish line of his race.

"When we hugged each other, I was like, 'Did you have good skis?'" Hajkova said. "And he said, 'I have your skis!'"

(Actually, they`re team skis. "We were thinking, when we retire them, we`ll have them both sign them and put them on the wall," said Bruce Cranmer, head Nordic coach for the team.)

Hajkova and Pletcher are the 82nd and 83rd skiers to win individual NCAA titles for the ski team -- a legacy that goes back to 1959, when alpine skier Dave Butts brought home two championships for the school. It won four individual titles the next year, a feat students repeated in 1963, 2006 and 2008.

The CU ski team thus leads the nation in total individual NCAA champions; University of Denver follows, with 79.

"We`ve got a good group that push each other in training," Cranmer said. "Our focus has always been to try to win, and certainly some of this goes towards recruiting -- I basically go after the best I can find."

'Psychologically stronger`

Hajkova was almost a runner, not a skier. Her father, who ran hurdles, pressured her to race as a runner at a young age, but it stressed her out. One day at a race, when she heard the pistol, she turned and ran the other way.

"In the period I didn`t race, I was a Girl Scout, and it was just girls all the time; it was boring," Hajkova said with a laugh. "And my mom helped me find a sport that was girls and boys together, and the only thing was cross-country skiing."

Fortunately, Hajkova lived in Jablonec nad Nisou, one of the best places for Nordic skiing in the Czech Republic.

Now, she`s "one of the more fierce, hard-core competitors out there," Pletcher said.

In her classical race at the collegiate nationals, in pouring rain ("When I kicked, I felt the water between my toes in my boots," she said), she knew that it was a race of tactics -- especially against her frequent rival from Utah, Maria Graefnings.

"I wanted to be psychologically stronger," Hajkova said.

Graefnings attacked three times, she said, but she waited for the final hill and the sprint finish. And won.

Cranmer said it was a finish he`d waited all season to see.

The sprinters, at distance

Hajkova and Pletcher had shared skis before last week -- they swapped at the U.S. nationals, too. There, Hajkova was lined up at the start of that race with no skis, making jokes about running rather than skiing, waiting for Pletcher to finish.

Cranmer said Pletcher didn`t have a pair of no-wax skis -- what the conditions called for last Friday in Stowe -- and that he and Hajkova are similar in size and have similar styles. Though they won distance events, both are sprinters.

Pletcher grew up skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho, with his family. Despite skiing strong for the past two years at CU, this was his first chance to go to the championships.

"He was one of the top skiers from our region, but because we had so many good skiers -- I mean, he would have been the top skier for a lot of schools," Cranmer said.

"It breaks your heart when you`re not taking the guy ranked No. 4 in the region."

This year, finally there, he got a rocky start.

"The first race didn`t go well; I got 23rd," Pletcher said of his skate race. "So I didn`t know if I could pull it off, but turned it around for the classic race. I felt way better."

Cranmer said Pletcher recovered well.

"He kind of relaxed and thought about the racing," Cranmer said. "And I encouraged him to take care of the details and don`t worry about the big picture, it`ll take care of itself."

It did. In his classical race, he became only the third American to win an NCAA classical championship. But Pletcher talked about wanting to help the team, and wanting to race for Spencer Nelson, a teammate who died in a climbing accident last summer. (The ski team dedicated its season to him.)

"When I`m skiing for a team, I put a lot of pressure on myself because it`s a lot harder letting the team down than it is letting myself down," he said.

"Skiing, it`s a really close-knit community," Pletcher said. "You know everyone, there`s really good people to hang around with.

"And to be honest, it`s one of the most bad-ass sports."

Source: http://www.coloradodaily.com/ci_17632152?source=rss_viewed

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