BIOGRAPHY
Easy going, always smiling Hailey Duke was competitive in Taekwondo as a teenager, making it to the national team trials before focusing on skiing. She never lost her tech focus and sticks with mostly slalom on the World Cup but will jump into a giant slalom from time to time.

The 2009 and 2010 seasons were monster building blocks for Duke, who made the '09 World Championships Team on the hinges of her first World Cup points and a 8th place in the Semmering, Austria World Cup slalom. She then upgraded that to an Olympic slot in 2010 thanks to a pair of World Cup scoring races in the Arctic Circle. Her 30th place finish in Vancouver is certainly not indicative of her talent as Duke will bank the big race experience and begin looking forward to Sochi, Russia in 2014.

After working through equipment frustrations at the onset of the 2011 season she was slowed down when a shoulder injury stopped being a nag and turned into a major pain. She fought through it for a good portion of the year then opted to have the doctors do what they needed to do with the knife. She also, within a month of shoulder surgery, had a scope on her right knee. Now rocking a full Atomic set-up for boots bindings and skis, she's set to fireball the 2012 season.

Duke quickly became a team-wide cheerleader in the Center of Excellence, but not just for alpine. She had athletes from across the USSA spectrum working like mad to mend strong for 2012.

HAILEY SAYS:
"It was not an easy decision to stop this season early but I knew it was what needed to be done. My goal is to be ready and at 100% going into next season. I have very high goals for myself for the 2012 season."

"I know that sometimes I need to take a step back to make a leap forward and that is what I am doing. I am now well on my way to recovery and expect to be on snow with the rest of my team in New Zealand."

FIRST TRACKS:
Her parents (Larry and Jane) were ski instructors at Sun Valley, so she started skiing at 2 at Sun Valley’s Dollar Mountain. Her first race was a Kindercup event when she was 4; “I actually had to do it twice because my first go around I missed the finish to go hit my favorite jump.” Duke began racing with the McCall Ski Team in Idaho at age 8, but shifted to the Park City Ski Team in 2004. She also practiced Taekwondo, competing at the national level and at age 15 coming in 3rd at U.S. Team Trials. She no longer competes, but uses Taekwondo as a cross-training vehicle - “and it definitely works,” she said.