Crested Butte will have another Olympian representing our little mountain town and our country at the Sochi Olympics after Aaron Blunck was named to the US Olympic Freeskiing team last week. David Chodounsky was named to the US Olympic Alpine Team after the conclusion of the Olympic qualifying period during FIS World Cup Events this past weekend. Chodounsky is currently ranked 18th in the FIS World Cup Rankings for Slalom and looks to lead the US in Slalom at the Olympics.
Photo: NBC Sports / Getty Images
We’ve highlighted David’s strong finishes on West Elk Project before and can’t wait to see how he performs in Sochi. Unfortunately, he crashed at his last event in Kitzbuehel, Austria, this past weekend but earned his spot on the Olympic team with a 7th in Val d’Isere, France, in December, a 15th in Bormio, Italy, January 6th, and an 8th in Adelboden, Switzerland, six days later. All results were the top US finish for the Men’s Slalom at those races.
For some background, David moved to Crested Butte with his family when he was 11 and was soon enrolled at the Crested Butte Academy. When he didn’t make the US Ski Team after high school, he attended Dartmouth, where he was crowned the NCAA Slalom champion in 2005, then captained the team to the NCAA overall champion in 2007, and graduated with a double major in geology and engineering (we approve of this degree for all you aspiring student-athletes out there). He was the US Slalom champion in 2009, earning a spot on the US Ski Team and has since had over 30 FIS World Cup starts after his 36 FIS Europa starts. It feels like David is only getting better after his long journey here and, as his US Ski Team profile states, “has a truckload of motivation.”
David Chodounsky joins a stacked US team with the likes of Ted Ligety (David’s closest slalom competition), Bode Miller, Mikaela Shiffrin, and Julia Mancuso (you might have heard that Lindsey Vonn has dropped out of the Olympics after she re-injured her knee this season after this crash last year).
Check out the full list of US Olympic Alpine Team members below:
2014 Olympic Alpine Team Nominations
Men
David Chodounsky, Crested Butte, CO (6/25/84)
Erik Fisher, Middleton, ID (3/21/85) *
Travis Ganong, Squaw Valley, CA (7/14/88)
Jared Goldberg, Holladay, UT (6/15/91)
Tim Jitloff, Reno, NV (1/11/85) *
Nolan Kasper, Warren, VT (3/27/89) *
Ted Ligety, Park City, UT (8/31/84) *
Bode Miller, Franconia, NH (10/12/77) *
Steven Nyman, Sundance, UT (2/12/82) *
Marco Sullivan, Squaw Valley, CA (4/27/80) *
Andrew Weibrecht, Lake Placid, NY (2/10/86) *
Women
Stacey Cook, Mammoth Mountain, CA (7/3/84) *
Julia Ford, Holderness, NH (3/30/90)
Julia Mancuso, Squaw Valley, CA (3/9/84) *
Megan McJames, Park City, UT (9/24/87) *
Laurenne Ross, Bend, OR (8/17/88)
Mikaela Shiffrin, Eagle-Vail, CO (3/13/95)
Leanne Smith, North Conway, NH (5/28/87) *
Resi Stiegler, Jackson Hole, WY (11/14/85) *
Jacqueline Wiles, Aurora, OR (7/13/92)
* Member of past U.S. Olympic Team
Sasha Rearick, the head coach of the Men’s Alpine team, has this to say about the selections: “As a group we’re building momentum right now, which is really nice to see. The guys have been working hard all summer, all fall, and all winter, day in and day out and that’s starting to show. The guys have shown 100% effort every day. You look at the guys who have been putting in the most effort, those are the guys we’re going to be taking to the Games and the ones that we can count on to represent America well.”
GO DAVID!!
You can read the official press release from the US Ski Team, and you can check out the “Meet the US Olympic Alpine Team” on NBC Sports, where we snagged that top photo.
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