Julia Mancuso

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Julia Mancuso
Julia Mancuso 2.jpg
Mancuso in December 2006
Disciplines Downhill, Super G,
Giant Slalom, Slalom,
Combined
Club Squaw Valley Ski Team
Born (1984-03-09) March 9, 1984 (age 29)
Reno, Nevada, U.S.
Height 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m)
World Cup debut November 20, 1999 (age 15)
Website juliamancuso.com
Olympics
Teams 3 – (2002–10)
Medals 3 (1 gold)
World Championships
Teams 6 – (2003–13)
Medals 5 (0 gold)
World Cup
Seasons 12th – (2002–13)
Wins 7 – (3 DH, 2 SG, 1 SC, 1 PS)
Podiums 35
Overall titles 0 – (3rd in 2007)
Discipline titles 0 – (2nd in DH & K, 2007,
    & SG, 2012, 2013)
Medal record
Women’s alpine skiing
Competitor for the
 United States
Olympic Games
Gold 2006 Turin Giant Slalom
Silver 2010 Vancouver Downhill
Silver 2010 Vancouver Combined
World Championships
Silver 2011 Garmisch Super G
Silver 2007 Åre Combined
Bronze 2013 Schladming Super G
Bronze 2005 Bormio Super G
Bronze 2005 Bormio Giant Slalom
Junior World Ski Championships
Gold 2004 Maribor Combined
Gold 2003 Puy St. Vincent Super G
Gold 2002 Tarvisio Downhill
Gold 2002 Tarvisio Giant Slalom
Gold 2002 Tarvisio Combined
Bronze 2004 Maribor Super G
Bronze 2003 Puy St. Vincent Downhill
Bronze 2001 Verbier Combined

Julia Mancuso (born March 9, 1984) is a World Cup alpine ski racer with the U.S. Ski Team. Born in Reno, Nevada, she was the gold medalist in the giant slalom at the 2006 Winter Olympics and the silver medalist in both downhill and combined at the 2010 Winter Olympics. She has also won five medals (two silver and three bronze) at the World Championships and seven races in regular World Cup competition. Her three Olympic medals are the most ever for a female American alpine skier.

Contents

Racing career [edit]

Mancuso made her World Cup debut at Copper Mountain, Colorado, on November 20, 1999, at the age of 15. She scored her first World Cup points (top-30 finish in a race) during the 2001 season. While she often struggled in World Cup races over the next few seasons, she enjoyed exceptional success at the Junior World Championships, winning a record eight medals, including five golds in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

Her World Cup results improved dramatically during the 2005 season, as she climbed to ninth place overall from 55th place in 2004. At the 2005 World Championships, she won bronze medals in both the super G and the giant slalom competitions. Her gold medal at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics was unexpected, as she had just three podiums that season, though all were within weeks of the Olympics. Only one of those podiums was in giant slalom, a third place in the final GS race before the Olympics.

She won the race despite ongoing pain in her right knee, which was finally traced to hip dysplasia.[1] She would finish the 2006 season in eighth place, including podium (top three) finishes in three races, although she could sometimes barely walk by season's end.

At the start of the off-season, Mancuso endured arthroscopic surgery on her right hip to remove an inch-long bone spur on the ball of the joint.[1] After several months off skis, she resumed training with the U.S. team in August, at their summer ski camp in South America. By the start of the 2007 season, she was almost fully recovered.

Mancuso at Aspen
in November 2006
Mancuso in December 2006

Although she started off slowly, with a number of disappointing results in the first few weeks as she worked back into race shape, the 2007 season would turn out to be Mancuso's breakout year on the World Cup circuit. She won her first World Cup race on December 19, 2006, a downhill in Val-d'Isère, France, and then took second in another downhill the next day. She went on to win three more races during the season; a Super G, a super combined, and another downhill. At the 2007 World Championships in Åre, Sweden, she won a silver medal in the super combined. After finishing on the podium in three consecutive races (2nd, 1st, 3rd) in Tarvisio, Italy, on March 2–4, 2007, she was tied for the overall World Cup lead. She eventually finished the season in third place overall, the best finish by an American woman since Tamara McKinney in 1984, until Lindsey Vonn won the overall title in 2008. Mancuso finished in second place in the 2007 season standings for both downhill and combined.

Following the 2008 season, Mancuso did not achieve a top-three finish in World Cup events for nearly two years due to back problems, so her silver medal in the women's downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics was another surprise.[2] The very next day, she won another silver in the Women's Super Combined, an event that incorporates both a downhill and a slalom run.[3] However, while Mancuso was trying to defend her title in giant slalom, Lindsey Vonn crashed after Mancuso, the next skier, had started, forcing Mancuso's run to be stopped just before she reached Vonn's crash.[4] Forced to restart from the back of the pack, Mancuso only managed an 18th-place first run, and her strong second run only brought her up to eighth overall.[5] On the first competition day at the 2011 World Championships in Garmisch, Germany, she once again proved her strength at big events by winning the silver medal in the Super-G.

A month later she won her first World Cup race in over four years, a victory in the downhill at the World Cup finals in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. Since this was a few days after a terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan, she launched a fundraiser by pledging half her race earnings of the World Cup finals to the skiershelpingjapan.com campaign website.[6]

World Cup results [edit]

Season standings [edit]

Season Age Overall Slalom Giant
Slalom		 Super G Downhill Combined
2001 16 113 55 — 47 — —
2002 17 73 — — 37 33 17
2003 18 46 44 — 25 27 5
2004 19 55 32 58 27 42 —
2005 20 9 26 7 13 10 6
2006 21 8 22 11 6 11 8
2007 22 3 24 4 4 2 2
2008 23 7 28 5 8 7 6
2009 24 27 42 17 27 24 36
2010 25 20 — 28 16 9 22
2011 26 5 51 9 3 3 8
2012 27 4 50 9 2 5 22
2013 28 4 33 11 2 9 6

Race podiums [edit]

  • 7 wins – (3 DH, 2 SG, 1 SC, 1 Parallel slalom)
  • 35 podiums – (11 DH, 15 SG, 5 GS, 3 SC, 1 Parallel slalom)
Season Date Location Discipline Place
2006 27 Jan 2006 Italy Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Super G 2nd
28 Jan 2006 Downhill 2nd
4 Feb 2006 Germany Ofterschwang, Germany Giant Slalom 3rd
2007 19 Dec 2006 France Val-d'Isère, France Downhill 1st
20 Dec 2006 Downhill 2nd
13 Jan 2007 Austria Altenmarkt, Austria Downhill 3rd
14 Jan 2007 Super Combined 1st
19 Jan 2007 Italy Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Super G 1st
20 Jan 2007 Downhill 2nd
21 Jan 2007 Giant Slalom 2nd
2 Mar 2007 Italy Tarvisio, Italy Super Combined 2nd
3 Mar 2007 Downhill 1st
4 Mar 2007 Super G 3rd
2008 27 Oct 2007 Austria Sölden, Austria Giant Slalom 2nd
21 Dec 2007 Austria St. Anton, Austria Downhill 3rd
22 Dec 2007 Super Combined 3rd
28 Dec 2007 Austria Lienz, Austria Giant Slalom 2nd
20 Jan 2008 Italy Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Super G 2nd
22 Feb 2008 Canada Whistler, Canada Downhill 3rd
2010 7 Mar 2010 Switzerland Crans-Montana, Switzerland Super G 3rd
2011 5 Dec 2010 Canada Lake Louise, Canada Super G 3rd
22 Jan 2011 Italy Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Downhill 2nd
27 Feb 2011 Sweden Åre, Sweden Super G 3rd
6 Mar 2011 Italy Tarvisio, Italy Super G 2nd
16 Mar 2011 Switzerland Lenzerheide, Switzerland Downhill 1st
2012 26 Nov 2011 United States Aspen, USA Giant Slalom 3rd
4 Dec 2011 Canada Lake Louise, Canada Super G 3rd
7 Jan 2012 Austria Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria Downhill 2nd
5 Feb 2012 Germany Garmisch, Germany Super G 1st
21 Feb 2012 Russia Moscow, Russia Parallel slalom 1st
15 Mar 2012 Austria Schladming, Austria Super G 2nd
2013 2 Dec 2012 Canada Lake Louise, Canada Super G 2nd
8 Dec 2012 Switzerland St. Moritz, Switzerland Super G 3rd
1 Mar 2013 Germany Garmisch, Germany Super G 2nd
3 Mar 2013 Super G 3rd

Lifestyle and endorsements [edit]

Mancuso's nickname among her U.S. Ski Team teammates and fans is "Super Jules".[7] Following her Olympic gold medal in 2006, a ski run at Squaw Valley Ski Resort was renamed "Julia's Gold".[8]

After her coach gave her a plastic tiara as a good-luck token in 2005, she wore it over her racing helmet during several slalom races. She wore her tiara following her Silver Medal run in the Women's Downhill and again at the medal ceremony at the 2010 Winter Olympics. In 2010, Mancuso launched her own lingerie line named Kiss My Tiara.[9] Mancuso also models lingerie and has been memorably quoted as saying, "I think underwear is my calling. You can be feminine and fast." [10]

In December 2006, Lange ski boots announced that Mancuso would be the first-ever "Lange Girl Athlete", and be the subject of posters, images, and an "ongoing effort to showcase exceptional women ski athletes who are also attractive and inspiring".[11] She switched to Völkl skis and Marker bindings following the 2010 season; she was previously with Rossignol.[12] Mancuso changed equipment suppliers after the 2012 season and now uses Head skis, boots, and bindings.[13]

During the 2010 Winter Olympics, VISA featured Mancuso in an animated story describing how as a child she had drawn a picture of herself as a gold medalist, and closing with a photograph of her after winning the gold medal in 2006.[14] She also starred in a commercial for 24 Hour Fitness called 'Reach Your Potential', directed by Emmy nominee Brent Roske. In 2012, Julia appears in the GoPro Hero3 video promotion.[15]

Personal life [edit]

Mancuso in January 2011

Mancuso was born in Reno, Nevada, and grew up in the Lake Tahoe area as the middle of three sisters, between older sister April and younger sister Sara. Her father, Ciro Mancuso, was arrested and convicted of running a $140 million marijuana smuggling operation when Julia was five years old.[16] Her parents divorced in 1992, and her mother said that Julia "took everything out on the slopes."[16] After his release from prison in 2000, Julia and her father became close.[16] Mancuso's sentence was greatly reduced because of his cooperation with the government in cases against other alleged organization members and Mancuso's lawyer Patrick Hallinan. As a result of his assistance to the government, Mancuso was allowed to keep $5 million in proceeds from his trafficking business.

She graduated from The Winter Sports School in Park City, Utah, in 2000 and resides in Olympic Valley, California.

Her boyfriend is Aksel Lund Svindal, a champion alpine ski racer from Norway.

References [edit]

  1. ^ a b Whiting, Sam (2006-11-26). "Julia's Gold: Neither sleet, nor snow, nor familial dysfunction will knock Julia Mancuso off form". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-03-23. 
  2. ^ Dampf, Andrew (2010-02-17). "Vonn captures gold; Mancuso silver". Associated Press. 
  3. ^ SI.com (2010-02-18). "Vonn falls in super-combined, fails to place; Mancuso grabs silver". CNN. Retrieved 2010-02-18. 
  4. ^ Tim Layden (2010-02-24). "Vonn's crash derails unlucky teammate Mancuso". Sports Illustrated. 
  5. ^ Dale Robertson (2010-02-25). "Mancuso can't salvage medal in giant slalom". Houston Chronicle. 
  6. ^ Dale Robertson (2010-03-15). "Alpine skiers pledge WCup prize money to Japan". Associated Press. 
  7. ^ "Julia Mancuso Olympic Skier is ‘Super Jules’". Bitten and Bound. 2010-02-19. 
  8. ^ Whiting, Sam (2006-11-26). "Julia's Gold: Neither sleet, nor snow, nor familial dysfunction will knock Julia Mancuso off form". SFGate.com (Hearst Communications Inc.). 
  9. ^ "Racy! Olympic skier launches lingerie line". New York: Associated Press. 2010-02-11. Retrieved 2010-02-11. 
  10. ^ Longmore, Andrew (2007-02-11). "Schuss in boots: All eyes will be on America’s pin-up of the slopes, nicknamed Princess, as she goes for gold today in Åre, Sweden". London: The Sunday Times (UK). Retrieved 2007-03-24. 
  11. ^ "Lange introduces "new" Lange Girl concept; names Mancuso first Lange Girl Athlete". Retrieved 2007-03-23. 
    "Ski Racing Short Films BONUS: Julia Mancuso: Lange Girl". Retrieved 2007-03-23. 
  12. ^ Ski Racing.com – Mancuso joins Marker Volkl Team – 2010-05-04
  13. ^ "Julia Mancuso signs three year deal with Head skis". Ski Racing.com. April 2, 2012. 
  14. ^ "Visa Go World Julia Mancuso". The Inspiration Room. 2010-02-13. Retrieved 2010-02-17. 
  15. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3PDXmYoF5U
  16. ^ a b c Layden, Tim (2006-02-13). "Skiing is believing". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 2010-02-18. 

External links [edit]

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