BIOGRAPHY
A skier from the age of 9, Michael Ankeny became a junior race winner at 10 and quickly earned a spot on the U.S. Development Team prior to the 2009 season. Now a U.S. Championships medalist and World Cup starter, the next stop is World Cup points and a major championship team.

Ankeny struck a balance of NorAm, Europa Cup and World Cup starts in the 2012 season and found varying levels of success in each category. A pair of NorAm podiums led to a top 25 at the Europa Cup level and a couple of blazing fast splits on the World Cup.

A midseason slam to his left hand slowed things with a little thumb surgery for a torn ligament, but he packaged it all as a season of more time in his boots and wrapped it up nicely with a pair of podiums at the Nature Valley U.S. Alpine Championships in Winter Park, CO to qualify for the U.S. B Team.

MICHAEL SAYS
Right now it's all about experience and that comes with more starts. I was able to get into three World Cup starts last season and all of them were really big races with a lot of fans. It's huge to get that kind of exposure and to be able to experience that kind of pressure.

Now it's time to step up, train hard and get to the finish line for some World Cup points. The confidence isn't the hard part, it's the execution.

FIRST TRACKS
A product of the famed Buck Hill program in Minnesota – the same that helped produce Olympians Lindsey Vonn and Kristina Koznick – Ankeny didn't start skiing until age 9, but it didn't take him long to get up to speed after winning his first junior race at 10. After making the U.S. Development Team prior to the '09 season, Ankeny began spending his summers in Park City sweating at the Center of Excellence and the rest is yet to be written.

OFF THE SNOW
When not on snow, he's diving through the books at Dartmouth each spring. If time allows, it's all about kicking the soccer ball, listening to hip hop and attempting the slack line.