Banff (AB), Canada – Canadian Alpine Ski Team member Trevor White has renewed hopes after undergoing successful knee surgery on April 20.

“(The recovery) is coming along super quick and super well,” said White, of Calgary, Alberta. “I can already bend (the knee) more than I could before surgery so I think it should be successful.”

The slalom specialist tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and broke off a piece of his tibia in 2006. He had surgery which repaired the ACL but the tibia grew back malformed.

“My tibia grew back in sort of a horn and for the last three years I just assumed that was the condition of my knee and I’ll just deal with it,” explained White, 28. “I had an X-ray in the fall and there was the option to take it off, so basically (the surgeon) went into the back corner of my knee and shaved down the tibia and cleaned up a lot of the tissue that had been damaged from that piece.

“It went well,” White said. “I’m weight bearing right now because they didn’t do anything structurally, they didn’t repair any ligaments or anything, so they said six to eight weeks for a full recovery.”

White, who placed second in slalom at the Canadian Championships in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Quebec, on March 25, had been skiing with pain for quite some time.

“You never want to have to get surgery,” said White, who competed in slalom at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. “But waking up every day and your knee is sore, and not being able to ski some events because it bothers your knee, and if there’s one less thing to worry about in skiing, than  (surgery) is a good thing.”

In addition to skiing pain free, White hopes to be able to race some giant slalom events.

“I haven’t skied much GS (giant slalom) in the last five years since I tore my knee, only a handful of days, so I’d like to be able to do more events than just slalom.”

White won’t be alone in rehabbing his knee, as his brother Mike had ACL surgery a few days later performed by the same surgeon, Dr. Mark Heard, at the Banff Mineral Springs Hospital.

“Dr. Heard was pretty funny saying, ‘I should have just done you guys in the same day and have you both here, save you a trip and giving a two-for-one special,’ ” recounted White, whose brother Mike is a coach with Calgary Alpine.

“We live together so we were maybe going to interview some nannies for a week or something like that,” joked White. “No, I’m doing a lot better than I thought I would be so I can look after him a bit more.”

White is hoping to be able to participate in the team’s fitness testing in three weeks’ time.