Sweden’s Maria Graefnings scores
and scores again for the Utes
BY BRYCE HUBNER
utah
jazzed
SCOT T HAVLICK; UNIVERSIT Y OF U TAH
Graefnings leads the Utah Invite
mass start.
Coach Holt (right) says that Graefnings is “the leader of the pack.”
The Soldier Hollow podium:
Utah’s Zoe Roy, Graefnings and
CU’s Eliska Hajkova.
Sweden has provided the U.S. with some great imports: fish, meatballs, IKEA. And now — to the delight of the University of Utah’s nordic ski team, but to the chagrin of everyone else on skinny skis in
the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA) — Maria
Graefnings. The native of Falun, Sweden, has won all four RMISA
cross country races to start the season.
But the affable Graefnings seems less concerned with streaks in sport
than simply making sure she’s “feeling right.” The rest, she says, takes
care of itself.
“Of course I trained very hard this summer and this fall,” Graefnings
says. “But [my current form has more to do with the fact that] when you
feel good in other areas, you also perform well. Everything at school is
going great — I’m studying in an excellent exercise and sports science
program, I have a good social atmosphere, and love this ski team. If you
feel good in general, the results come as a bonus.”
Graefnings joined the Utes this fall by way of the ski team at the University of Nevada at Reno, where she was a two-time All-American last
year before the program folded due to lack of funding. Before that, she’d
been studying and training in Oestersund, Sweden — a popular base for
World Cup stars like Anna Haag — until a friend on the Reno ski team,
Kristin Ronnestrand, convinced her to give life and skiing in the United
States a try.
“I basically decided that I wanted to do something different — to develop
as a person — and to come to the U.S. and learn English,” Graefnings
says. “I enjoyed Reno very much, and it was obviously difficult when they
canceled the program.”
Heading into 2010, the college racing world had an idea about the possibility it would be Reno’s last winter on the NCAA circuit, which made
Graefnings — though still a new face — a hot commodity. At the 2011
NCAA Champs, she had suitors lined up across the land.
“At NCAAs last year, all the teams knew that Nevada was in its last year
and I think we all knew Maria was fast and we were all hoping she might
decide to [come to our respective schools],” says Utah nordic coach Abi
Holt, who credits Graefnings’ recruitment to former Utah skiing director
Eli Brown. “But I think we are even luckier to have snapped up Maria
than we initially thought, because, results aside, she’s just a great addition to the leadership of our team. Alpine and nordic, men and women
— her attitude is [pervasive].”
Graefnings says she almost decided to return to school and skiing in
Sweden, but eventually landed in Utah because she liked the coaches
