Emma Hammergaard

Photo by: NCAA Photos

Photo by: Evan Wang

Photo by: Ron Knabenbauer, University of Denver

Photo by: NCAA Photos via Getty Images

Position:
ALPINE
Height:
5-9
Class:
Senior
Hometown:
Gavle, Sweden
High School:
Are Skidgymnasium
Prev School:
Gavle Alpina

World Univeristy Games Participant (2023 Lake Placid)
Two-Time All-American (2023)
First-Team All-American (2023 GS)
Second-Team All-American (2023 SL)
Two-Time All-RMISA (2022, ‘23)
Second-Team All-RMISA (2023)
Honorable Metion All-RMISA (2022)
Outstanding Alpine Woman Award (2023)
Four-Time NCAA Championship Qualifier (2020, ‘21, ‘22, ‘23)
Three-Time National Collegiate All-Academic Ski Team (2021, ‘22, ‘23; 3.5 GPA, Participation In Regionals)
Three-Time Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll (2021, ‘22, ‘23)
CSC Academic All-District (2023 At-Large)
4.0 Club (2023)
Two-TIme CU Athlete of the Week (Feb. 22, 2022, Jan. 29, 2023)
Four-Time Letterwinner (2020-21-22)

At Colorado: Career—Hammergaard has raced in all 52 possible races in her career and finished 41 of them with 38 top 20 and 24 top 10 performances. She also has three top 5 finishes including one podium appearance, all in GS. While her top results are in GS, she is solid in both disciplines as exactly half of her 24 top 10 (12 GS, 12 slalom) and 38 top 20 (19 GS, 19 slalom) finishes have come in each discipline.

2023 (Sr.)—Hammergaard raced in all 13 possible races including the NCAA Championships for the Buffs in her fourth season of competition, securing herself as the top women’s alpine skeir at CU, winning the Outstanding Alpine Woman Award after securing 9 top 10 finishes in her 10 finished races including three top five finishes and one podium appearance. She finished in the top eight in all but one race on the season and picked up two All-America honors at NCAA Championships, a first-team honor for her fifth place GS finish and a second-team honor for her eighth place slalom finish. She also took sixth place at the RMISA Championships in the slalom and had her best racing over three days in the CU Invitational, picking up her first career podium in the extra qualifier GS race, taking fourth and eighth in the two GS races as part of teh CU meet. She earned second-team All-RMISA and was equally impressive in the classroom, earning a spot on the 4.0 Club along with being named to the National All-Academic Ski Team, the CSC All-Distrct At-Large team and the Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll. She picked up her fourth letter and earned CU Athlete of the Week honors in late January for her performance at the CU meet. She also took part in World University Games in Lake Placid and won a bronze medal in the GS race on the same hill she would later earn two All-America honors at during NCAAs.

2022 (Jr.)—Hammergaard saw action in all 14 possible races including the NCAA Championships for the Buffs in her junior season, putting together her best season as a collegian and earning honorable mention All-RMISA honors. She finished 12 of the 14 races with 11 top 10, seven top 10 and her first career top five and podium appearance when she took second in the GS at the RMISA Championships. She broke through her career best finish of eighth, which she accomplished in both disciplines a total of eight times, when she finished sixth in the slalom race at the DU Invitational. Two days later at the RMISA Championships, she finished second in a GS race for her first career top 5 and podium appearance. She also took seventh in a slalom race in an extra qualifier ahead of the NCAA Champinoships. She narrowly missed two All-America honors taking 12th in the slalom and 15th in the GS at the NCAA Championships. She was named the CU Athlete of the Week for her performance at the DU Invitational. She was named to the National All-Academic Ski Team and the Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll in the classroom.

2021 (Sophomore)—Hammergaard improved her performances in her sophomore season but took more risks, finishing a fewer percentage of races than her freshman season. She went from finishing 11 of 13 races as a freshman to eight of 12 her sophomore season, but those eight performances all came in the top 16 with five top 10 finishes, including three in GS and two slalom. She matched her career best of eighth three times in GS and set her career best of eighth in slalom at Snowbird as part of the RMISA Invitational at Westminster in early February. She took eighth in two GS races at Park City, one as part of the RMISA Invitational at Utah and the other at the RMISA Championships. She consistently skied better on her second run of the race, twice having the second fastest second run in the field in slalom races, including at the NCAA Championships when she improved from 22nd to 16th place. She also had the third-fastest second run in the GS at the RMISA Championships, moving up from 19th to eighth. She also had the fourth-fastest second run in a GS race at Park City, moving up from 12th to finish eighth. She earned her second career letter, scoring for the team in all eight races she finished, picking up 164 team points in those eight races.

2020 (Freshman)—Hammergaard competed in all 13 races for the Buffs in her first collegiate season, finishing 11 with 10 top 20 and three top 10 finishes her freshman season. She scored for the team a total of eight times, earning her first varsity letter, and was the Buffs top performer twice, for the slalom race in Park City in a qualifier race and in the GS race at the NCAA Championships. She opened her career with her first top 10 finish, taking eighth in the GS race in Aspen in a qualifier race, and then in consecutive qualifier races near the end of the season, taking eighth in the slalom qualifier in Park City and ninth in the GS qualifier race in Bozeman ahead of RMISA Championships. She also had two 11th place finishes and a total of eight top 15 finishes. Consistent across disciplines, she split her 10 top 20 finishes evenly with five apiece in GS and slalom and her three top 10 finishes included two GS and one slalom. After her eighth place to open the season in Aspen, she took 16th in the GS and 13th in the slalom races there as part of the DU meet and then after not finishing the GS race as part of the CU meet, she took 12th and 11th in the two slalom races as Eldora, the first one counting for the meet. In Utah, she took 11th in the GS race and 15th in the slalom races for the Utah meet before taking eighth in the slalom qualifier race and in Bozeman after her ninth place GS finish, she took 22nd in the GSs as part of the RMISA Championships before not finishing the slalom race. At the NCAA Championships, she was 20th in the GS race before the slalom race was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Club—She has skied for Gavle Alpina since 2004 and has appeared in 102 FIS-sanctioned races including Junior National Championships and National Championships since 2015 … She has finished 79 of those races with 55 Top 20, 32 Top 10 and 15 top five finishes including eight podium appearances and one race win … Six of her eight podium appearances came in the 2018-19 season, including her first career win in a slalom race at Kaabdalis, Sweden in a FIS race on Dec. 2, 2018 … At the Sweedish Youth Nationals in 2014 she took first place in the Super G, second in the downhill and third in the giant slalom … At the Junior National Championships in 2018, she took fourth place in the slalom and followed that up with a ninth place finish in 2019 at the same championship … In GS races at the Junior National Championships, she was 10th in 2018 and 13th in 2019 … In 2016, in the Swedish National Championships, she was 15th in alpine combined taking 21st in slalom, 23rd in Super G and 28th in giant slalom.

High School—She graduated from Are Skidgymnasium in Jarpen, Sweden, in 2019.

In The Classroom—She is majoring in Psychology at Colorado and working toward two minors in Sociology and Women and Gender Studies.

Personal—Emma Elin Kristina Hammergaard was born October 7, 1999, in Gavle, Sweden … Her parents are Peter Hammergaard and Eva Larsson and she has a younger sister, Emma … She speaks Swedish and English fluently and knows some French … She enjoys baking and cooking in her free time … She also enjoys watching movies and listening to music and enjoys most outdoor activities as long as it has some action … After college she wants to continue to travel a lot and get work either in the ski industry or psychology-related.

Why Colorado?—”It was my first choice since I started looking at colleges, I’ve always wanted to travel these parts of the U.S. so it wasn’t a hard choice when I got the opportunity to both live and ski here.”