- Utah's ski team won its 18th national title on March 14, 2026, on home snow at Soldier Hollow. Here is the full title timeline, how the AIAW and NCAA eras add up, and the races that decided the latest one.
- This story sits inside Utah's olympic sports lane and connects to the larger statewide sports picture.
- The story is backed by 7 sources and a visible last-verified date.
October 13, 2026
October 13, 2026
4 min / 892 words
7 official links
The University of Utah ski team won its 18th national championship on March 14, 2026, at Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Midway, edging Colorado 549.5 to 539 on the final day of the NCAA Skiing Championships. It was Utah's second straight NCAA title and its sixth in the last seven championships, according to Utah Athletics.
The number 18 needs one line of explanation. Seventeen of the titles are NCAA championships. The other is the 1978 championship of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), won when the NCAA did not yet sponsor a women's skiing championship. Utah counts all 18 as team national titles.
How Utah won the 2026 NCAA title
The 2026 championships were meant for Montana. The NCAA moved them in February because of a lack of snow around Bozeman, relocating alpine races to Utah Olympic Park and Nordic races to Soldier Hollow for March 11-14, with Utah as host. "To put this together in three weeks is just unbelievable," director of skiing Fredrik Landstedt said afterward. "You normally have a year or two to work on the championship."
The four-day meet opened with giant slalom on Wednesday, followed by 7.5K classic interval starts on Thursday, slalom on Friday and 20K freestyle mass starts on Saturday. Alpine races ran at the Spencer F. Eccles Olympic Mountain Center at Utah Olympic Park, and men's and women's results in both disciplines fed one team score.
The meet swung back and forth. Colorado led by four points after giant slalom, Utah led by 11.5 at the halfway point after the 7.5K classic races, and Colorado built a 6.5-point cushion with a strong slalom day. That left the 20K freestyle mass starts on Saturday to decide it.
Mons Melbye won the men's 20K freestyle, the 91st individual NCAA title in program history. In the women's race, Erica Lavén took third and Witta Walcher fifth, and both earned first-team All-America honors with Melbye. Utah finished with 15 All-America citations and 10 first-team nods, the most of any team at the meet.
"We were leading after two days and then we were second again, and coming into today we knew it was going to be a dogfight," Landstedt said. "Colorado is very, very strong, and it was between us and them."
Every Utah ski title, year by year
Utah's championship notes list the titles in order:
- 1978: AIAW women's champion
- 1981: NCAA champion (a men's-only championship)
- 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988: NCAA champion, after the NCAA combined men's and women's skiing in 1983
- 1993, 1996, 1997: NCAA champion
- 2003: NCAA champion
- 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023: NCAA champion
- 2025, 2026: NCAA champion
That is five titles in a six-year stretch in the 1980s, three in five seasons in the 1990s, and seven since 2017.
The four-straight run, and the 2020 gap
Utah won NCAA titles in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023. When it won in 2023 at Lake Placid, Utah Athletics noted that the Utes had become the first program to win four straight team NCAA championships since the NCAA combined the genders in 1983. There was no 2020 champion; that meet was canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2023 title was close as well. Utah scored 526 points to Colorado's 491.5, powered by a women's sweep of all four individual races. Novie McCabe won both Nordic races, including the 20K classic in 1:00:04.3, and Utah Athletics noted that the Ute women had won six consecutive NCAA Nordic races, sweeping them at the 2021, 2022 and 2023 championships. "It was probably the hardest one in my five years at Utah," Landstedt said that day.
The two-point loss in 2024
The streak ended at Howelsen Hill in 2024. Utah led Colorado by 51 points going into the final day's 20K classic races, but Colorado placed all three of its women in the top nine and won the meet 569.5 to 567.5, two points ahead of the Utes. "It happens this way in sport sometimes," Landstedt said.
Utah answered with titles in 2025 and 2026.
Who leads Utah skiing now
Landstedt has led Utah to six team championships in eight seasons, according to the 2026 recap. Head alpine coach JJ Johnson has been on staff for all six, assistant alpine coach Mary Joyce has helped with five, and head Nordic coach Pierre Niess has won the title in both of his seasons in Salt Lake City.
Utah is scheduled to host the NCAA Skiing Championships again in 2028, the NCAA said when it announced the 2026 move.
These are varsity collegiate team championships, separate from Olympic results. For Utah's Winter Games story and the build toward 2034, see our Utah 2034 Olympics hub, and for the rest of the university's teams, the University of Utah school page.
Key facts:
- Total: 18 team national championships, 17 NCAA plus the 1978 AIAW women's title
- 2026: Utah 549.5, Colorado 539, at Utah Olympic Park and Soldier Hollow, March 11-14, 2026
- Mons Melbye: 2026 NCAA men's 20K freestyle champion, Utah's 91st individual NCAA title
- Recent run: NCAA champion in 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025 and 2026; no 2020 championship
- First: First program to win four straight NCAA team titles since genders combined in 1983
- 2024: Colorado 569.5, Utah 567.5
- Coach: Director of skiing Fredrik Landstedt, six team titles in eight seasons
- Next home championship: Utah hosts the NCAA meet in 2028