The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Races Thursday, December 8
The quest continues for Minnesota-born, Crested Butte-raised alpine ski racer David Chodounsky.
Chodounsky—who has done his time fundraising, working and racing—last May found out that the 2011-2012 season will be all-expenses-paid, when he was named to the U.S. Ski Team in slalom.
“It’s great,” says Chodounsky. “It’s so much help, so much less to worry about.”
It’s the second time he’s been named to the team but the first time around, funding for the B team had been cut off, leaving Chodounsky to continue to pay his own way.
He put together a solid season last winter, including several strong finishes on the World Cup circuit including the world championships and climbing to a 31st ranking in slalom in the world to earn a spot on the World Cup for the 2011-2012 season.
“It’s nice to have that secure,” says Chodounsky.
Thanks to his selection to the B team again, Chodounsky was able to stretch his 2010-2011 season into late spring and early summer, with on-snow training in Oregon and California.
“I got more on snow for sure in the early part of the summer,” says Chodounsky. “I think it’s helped and worked for me.”
Chodounsky then spent July in Utah for more strength work before heading to the southern hemisphere for continued on-snow training and racing in New Zealand.
“It went really well,” says Chodounsky. “I was skiing great and it was awesome prep. We skied a lot this summer.”
The team headed over to Europe in October for some more work and Chodounsky tweaked his knee, putting the start of the World Cup season in flux.
Fortunately, he caught a break as the first World Cup race of the season was cancelled due to lack of snow and the next one moved from Val d’Isere to Beaver Creek this week.
“It’s all kind of worked out,” says Chodounsky.
Now his knee is feeling good and after training hard the past several weeks and forerunning a NorAm race recently, he’s ready for the first World Cup slalom race of the year Thursday, December 8 in Beaver Creek.
“It feels good—I’m getting excited,” says Chodounsky.
The team then heads back to Europe where Chodounsky has a couple of Europa Cup races and then two more World Cup starts, one in Alta Badia, Italy on December 16 and then Flachau, Austria on December 21.
“Our slalom team this year is really fast so we’ve all been pushing pretty hard in training,” says Chodounsky. “Hopefully we’ll get some good results.”
