Career-Best Slalom Result for Chodounsky

VAL D’ISERE, France (Dec. 13, 2015) - David Chodounsky (Crested Butte, CO) just missed the podium, skiing to a career-best fourth-place finish in Sunday’s Audi FIS World Cup Slalom in Val d’Isere.

“It’s unreal. Fourth place is amazing,” Chodounsky said. “To start off the slalom season like this is super cool … just to get your mind where you want to it be and know that you’re skiing well.”

Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen won the race with Marcel Hirscher of Austria taking second. Felix Neureuther of Germany finished third. Ted Ligety (Park City, UT), the only other U.S. athlete to qualify for the second run, was 20th.

Ted Ligety scored slalom points, finishing 20th. (Getty Images-Alexis Boichard)

Mark Engel (Truckee, CA) and Michael Ankeny (Deephaven, MN) did not qualify for the second run. Brothers Tim Kelley (Starksboro, VT) and Robby Kelley (Starksboro, VT) did not finish the first run.

Chodounsky, whose previous career World Cup best also came at Val d’Isere with a seventh-place finish in 2013, was 11th after the first run, and then skied a solid second run to move up on the steep, hard-packed slope.

“Steeps and hard snow are my fort,” Chodounsky said. “First run I got popped in the face. Not the best of starts. But I brought my focus in on the second run and calmed down.”

Next up, the men's speed team heads to Val Gardena, Italy with downhill training kicking off on Wednesday. The tech team will be in Alta Badia, Italy on Sunday.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Sunday was a career-best fourth-place result for David Chodounsky. His previous career best was seventh, also at Val d’Isere in 2013.
• Ted Ligety scored World Cup slalom points for the first time since racing at Adelboden last January, where he finished 22nd.
• The Val d'Isere slalom will air on Universal HD at 12 p.m. ET.

QUOTES
David Chodounsky
It’s unreal. Fourth place is amazing. To start off the slalom season like this is super cool … just to get your mind where you want to it be and know that you’re skiing well.

Steeps and hard snow are my fort, you combine them and I really like that. I feel comfortable on this hill. Even though it’s a tough hill, I love coming here.

Ted Ligety
I made it to the finish line. That’s something I haven’t done very much. I don’t really train slalom anymore, it’s given me zero ROI, so I’m not really going to keep working on it too much. So hopefully I can have some good races here and there.

RESULTS
Men’s Slalom