Buffs go for gold in Olympics’ closing week

Colorado's Svea Irving qualified for the Freestyle Skiing Women's Freeski Halfpipe Final in the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics. (Photo via Getty Images/CUBuffs.com)

In the final week of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, seven former or current students from the University of Colorado Boulder competed for a gold medal. They took part in a variety of skiing and snowboarding events, including cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, alpine skiing, snowboard cross and biathlon. 

Two current CU ski team members, Hugo Hinckfuss and Jacob Moch, had events last week. 

Moch skied for Team Germany in two cross-country skiing events. His first event on Wednesday was the Men's Team Sprint Free Final, where he and teammate Jan Stoelben earned a ninth-place finish in a 15-team race with a time of 18:43.14. They were only 14.16 seconds behind first place. 

His second event of the week was the Men’s 50km Mass Start Classic on Saturday. He managed a 36th-place finish out of 65. Moch’s time was 2:23:44.8.

Hinckfuss and teammate Lars Vik made it to the final of the Men's Team Sprint Free representing Team Australia. They had a time of 18:54.65, nearly six minutes behind the gold medal-winning team. They finished 14th out of 15. 

Three former CU skiers competed in the Olympics last week as well: Joanne Reid, Cassidy Gray and Alvar Alev.

Alev skied in the Cross-Country Skiing Men's 50km Mass Start Classic for Team Estonia on Saturday. He finished 15th out of 65 with a time of 2:14:47.3. Alev’s time was eight minutes behind the first-place finisher.

Gray skied for Team Canada in the Alpine Skiing Women's Giant Slalom on Sunday, Feb. 15, but did not finish. 

Reid competed for Team USA in the Biathlon Women's 4x6-kilometer Relay on Wednesday with teammates Deedra Irwin, Lucinda Anderson and Margie Freed. They finished 18th out of 20 with a time of 1:16:49.4. They ended up over six minutes away from the top of the podium.

Two other former CU students, Svea Irving and Stacy Gaskell, also had eventful last weeks. 

Irving skied for Team USA in the Freestyle Skiing Women's Freeski Halfpipe Final on Thursday. She had a good qualifying run, earning a score of 80.75. She started her first run well with an alley-oop flatspin, a left-spinning 900 and a right-spinning 900. 

Unfortunately, she crashed on her fourth trick, bruising her hip, and wasn’t able to do her second run. She had to bail out early from her third run and finished 11th out of 12 with a score of 22.50. 

Gaskill snowboarded for Team USA in the Snowboard Mixed Team Snowboard Cross Quarterfinal on Sunday, Feb. 15. She and teammate Nathan Pare failed to move on to the semifinals after not finishing.

Despite the lack of medals for Buffs in Milan, top 10 finishes and finals appearances are more than enough to make the CU community proud.