BIOGRAPHY
When Minnesota born David Chodounsky fell short of making the U.S. Ski Team after high school, he enrolled at Dartmouth and won the NCAA slalom title in his freshman year. Two years later he captained the school to the NCAA overall title then graduated with a double major in engineering and geology. Fully focused now on skiing, Chodounsky was named to the U.S. Ski Team after winning the U.S. slalom title in 2009.

Chodounsky cruised into the 2012 season with a mess of World Cup slalom points and a truck load of motivation. However the only thing he was short on was health and he ended up cutting the season short before Christmas to undergo surgery on his patella. Game plan was to be completely healed and training by May. The plan worked.

DAVID SAYS
I fought through November and December, but I realized there is no use for me to go through the season without being fully recovered. It wouldn't do me any good to ski through a World Cup season when I'm not 100 percent. I wouldn’t ski to my potential and my rankings would just dwindle. By doing the surgery, I saved my rankings for next year through injury protection and am fully recovered for next season.

My surgery ended up being a pretty intense scope to clean up the cartilage under my kneecap and smooth out the movement of my patella.  It was a lot of cleaning up, but a success, according to the doctors.

It was a good move on my part to decide to get surgery since the damaged cartilage was quite severe with actual chunks missing and flaps hanging loose. On the pictures, it looked like I had an ice axe swing away at it, and I could have kept damaging it more if I had continued skiing on it. Sometimes you just have to listen to your body and fix it, and I’m glad I did.

FIRST TRACKS
Being born in Minnesota, Chodounsky began skiing at two-years-old when Ma and Pa mounted a pair of whittled wooden planks and pushed him down the hill in the family front yard. At seven he picked up racing and joined the local race team at Buck Hill skiing with Lindsey Vonn under legendary coach Erich Sailer. From there, the family packed up for Crested Butte, CO when Chodounsky was 11 to further his skiing. He attended Crested Butte Academy and continued to hone his skills at Dartmouth before making the U.S. Ski Team after the 2009 season.

OFF THE SNOW
It's the mountain lifestyle for Chodounsky, as long as it involves fishing – Colorado or Utah, both are good. A big fan of the Broncos, he's still not feeling right about their implosion at the end of last season. Unfortunately, the U.S. Ski Team doesn't have a rehab program for that.