Ben Ogden: Balancing Olympic, NCAA Skiing Ambitions Alongside a New Wave of Top U.S. Skiers
In the same year that Ben Ogden raced the Olympics, someway and somehow, he won an NCAA Championship.
That confluence of talent and time has happened exactly twice before Ogden, and once after. The first before came a half-century ago, when fellow Vermonter Stan Dunklee represented the USA at the 1976 Innsbruck Olympics before winning NCAAs a couple weeks later. The second before came a mere two hours prior to Ogden, when Novie McCabe (University of Utah) won the this year’s women’s 5 k Classic NCAA Championship. Likewise, the one time after came when Sophia Laukli (University of Utah) won this year’s 15 k Freestyle NCAA Championship.
Ben Ogden
2022 Winter Olympian and 2023 U23 Green Bib Winner Ben Ogden is among the most electric skiers on the World Cup circuit. Ben is known for pushing the pace in almost every race he enters and, in the 2022-23 season, took home the U23 Green Bib, cementing himself as the fastest male skier under 23 years old on the entire World Cup. and in the first stage of the 2023-24 Tour de Ski, Ben secured his first career podium in the skate sprint with a third-place finish.