Chodounsky punches his ticket to Sochi games

“Just ski like I have been and punch it!”

It all started for David Chodounsky at Buck Hill in Minnesota. Twenty-five years later, it’s all come to fruition.

On Sunday, January 26 Chodounsky found out that he would represent the U.S. in the slalom at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia next month.
And while it wasn’t necessarily a surprise, it was, nonetheless, incredible. As the highest scoring American on the World Cup slalom circuit this season and ranked 18th in the world, he was sure to be called to the Olympics. But, you never know until it’s official.
“They used results up to the World Cup in Kitzbuhel,” explains Chodounsky. “I knew I had already made the objective criteria and so I was pretty sure I was going already at the second week of January after my Adelboden 8th place. But you just never know so I didn’t want to jinx it. It was still so cool to see it on paper though!”
Chodounsky’s road to the Olympic Games has been somewhat non-traditional and had an auspicious beginning. While skiing with his father, Martin Chodounsky, at Buck Hill as a kid, he jumped into a racecourse to give it a try. It just so happens that a ski coach was there, saw him, and asked if David was interested in racing.
That turned into official training with ski coaching legend Erich Sailer at Buck Hill alongside the likes of Lindsey Vonn.
When Chodounsky was 11 his family moved to Crested Butte and he continued his training with the Crested Butte Ski Club and finished his high school racing career for the Crested Butte Academy.
At that point, ski racers typically must make a decision that can determine whether or not they will pursue the Olympic dream.
Either postpone school, continue training and try to make the U.S. Ski team, or go to college. He did both. He took a year off between high school and college to race and, following that, decided to go to school. He went on to attend Dartmouth as well as ski race for Dartmouth winning a NCAA National title in slalom as a freshman and was captain of the NCAA champion ski racing team when he was a junior.
Done with school, he returned to his U.S. Ski team dream and kept pressing. Paying his own way with support from donations, Chodounsky chipped away at his goals, first making the B Team in 2009 and eventually getting called up onto the A Team.
The past three years he’s been climbing the World Cup rankings, taking part of the 2012 season off to rehab a knee injury, posting impressive results on the World Cup scene.
This year has been his most successful to date with a couple of top 10 finishes as well as a 15th place finish. As is often the case with ski racing, he had a couple mishaps in World Cup races the past month but rebounded on Tuesday to return to the finals placing 22nd in Schladming, Austria.
“That didn’t go the best,” admits Chodounsky. “I was 14th after the first run, which was ok, but then skied pretty slow second run and ended up 22nd. Schladming was the final World Cup before the Olympics so now we have some time to take a break and recharge for February. January is a very long month. Five World Cups in January and some side races take it’s toll. Back to training though in the beginning of February and there are some Europa Cups we will do just to stay in race shape.”
While he’s been knocking on the door of a podium finish on the World Cup circuit, his expectations at Sochi are somewhat reserved.
“I want to go into Sochi with not much expectation,” says Chodounsky. “I seem to do better then. Just ski like I have been and punch it!”
Truth is, he’s reached his lifelong goal and the rest is icing on the cake.
“It was always a dream to be able to compete in the Olympics,” says Chodounsky. “I’ve been striving and striving and now it’s happening. Thank you so much to my mom and dad and friends and the entire CB community for supporting me and allowing me to come to this point. It’s been a rough road and it definitely looked like I wasn’t going to make it at times. But again, I am very grateful for all the support and belief people have had in me, even when sometimes I did not. Hopefully Aaron and I can show the world what CB is all about!”