Chodounsky closes season with National slalom title

“It’s a national title, so you want it and you go for it”

David Chodounsky closed out his 2013-2014 racing season standing on top of the podium, winning the U.S. Nationals slalom title last week at Squaw Valley.

Chodounsky put together the best season of his alpine racing career this past year. Not only did he rack up a couple of top 10 finishes on the World Cup circuit, bringing his world ranking down to 19th; he also is the top slalom skier on the U.S. Ski Team and represented the United States at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
While his Olympic debut didn’t pan out as well as he hoped, he continued on the World Cup circuit with two more races in February and March and finished the year placing 18th at the World Cup finals.
“I was still skiing well, but the last few races didn’t go as well as I wanted,” says Chodounsky. “Still, it was great to be at the World Cup finals.”
The World Cup season wrapped up on March 16 and Chodounsky returned immediately to the United States, heading to Squaw Valley for U.S. Nationals. Chodounsky won the slalom title in 2009 to earn his spot on the U.S. Ski Team and while he admits the atmosphere was a bit relaxed, it was still Nationals and he wanted to finish the season on a high note.
“It’s not the biggest event of the season and there’s not so much pressure, so it was a pretty relaxed atmosphere,” says Chodounsky. “It’s a national title though, so you want it and you go for it.”
He dug himself a pretty deep hole at Nationals as his competition laid down fast runs to open the event and Chodounsky bobbled on his first slalom run.
“I just didn’t ski as clean as I could have on the first run and I was pretty far back so I really had to hammer down in the second run,” explains Chodounsky.
Chodounsky made up enough time on his second run to take the national title and close the season with a smile on his face and big plans for the upcoming year.
“I’m really happy—a win is a win and it’s always good to have,” says Chodounsky. “The end of my World Cup season wasn’t great but I knew I was skiing fast so it was great to finish strong and take that into next year.”
Chodounsky will focus on expanding his alpine resume to include Giant Slalom with a series of races this spring in Sun Valley and this summer in New Zealand.
“I want to push to ski a lot of GS this spring and summer,” says Chodounsky. “I really want to ski GS on the World Cup. It helps to have two events so you don’t go crazy just focusing on one event all of the time.”