BOZEMAN, Mont.—The third day of skiing here at Bridger Bowl opened up a new meet, the RMISA Invitational, with Thursday's slalom races counting as the first two of eight races planned in the meet over three states in the next two weeks.
Denver won the women's race with a commanding 97 points and used that momentum to take the lead after the first day with 159 points. Host of this set of races for this meet Montana State is second with 150 points, just one point ahead of Utah (149) as the top three teams are just 10 points apart. Westminster is just another 12 points back with 137 and Colorado, which won the men's race with 85 points, is fifth with 103 total points.
Westminster's Francesco Gori won the men's race by 19-hundredths of a second over Colorado's Filip Forejtek while Alaska Anchorage's Leon Nikic founded out the podium in third place. The Buffs won the race on the strength of its next two skiers finishing sixth and eighth as the top five places all had skiers from different teams.
That was not how the women's race played out. MSU's Kristianne Bekkestad won the race and was followed by Katie Hensein from DU in second and Utah's Madison Hoffman rounded out the podium. But DU then had Eleri Smart and Galena Wardle take fourth and fifth to win the race and take the lead in the meet.
The second half of the alpine portion of the RMISA Invitational will take place Sunday with GS races at Park City. Then the Utah Invitational alpine portion will close out that meet on Monday and Tuesday, wrapping up six days of racing over eight days for the alpine teams to start the season.
| Date | Race |
|---|---|
| Jan. 20 | Women's Slalom |
| Jan. 20 | Men's Slalom |
| Jan. 23 | Women's Giant Slalom |
| Jan. 23 | Men's Giant Slalom |
| Feb. 5 | Women's 5K Freestyle |
| Feb. 5 | Men's 10K Freestyle |
| Feb. 6 | Women's 10K Classic |
| Feb. 6 | Men's 10K Classic |