Julia Mancuso

Julia Mancuso
Mancuso in December 2006
Personal information
Born (1984-03-09) March 9, 1984 (age 40)
Reno, Nevada, U.S.
OccupationAlpine skier
Height5 ft 6 in (1.68 m)
Skiing career
DisciplinesDownhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom, combined
ClubSquaw Valley Ski Team
World Cup debutNovember 20, 1999
(age 15)
RetiredJanuary 19, 2018
(age 33)
Websitejuliamancuso.com
Olympics
Teams4 – (2002–14)
Medals4 (1 gold)
World Championships
Teams7 – (2003–15)
Medals5 (0 gold)
World Cup
Seasons14th – (2002–15)
Wins7 – (3 DH, 2 SG, 1 SC, 1 CE)
Podiums36
Overall titles0 – (3rd in 2007)
Discipline titles0 – (2nd in DH & K, 2007,
    & SG, 2012, 2013)
Medal record
Women's alpine skiing
Representing the  United States
International alpine ski competitions
Event 1st 2nd 3rd
Olympic Games 1 2 1
World Championships 0 2 3
Total 1 4 4
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 2006 Turin Giant slalom
Silver medal – second place 2010 Vancouver Downhill
Silver medal – second place 2010 Vancouver Combined
Bronze medal – third place 2014 Sochi Combined
World Championships
Silver medal – second place 2007 Åre Combined
Silver medal – second place 2011 Garmisch Super-G
Bronze medal – third place 2005 Bormio Super-G
Bronze medal – third place 2005 Bormio Giant slalom
Bronze medal – third place 2013 Schladming Super-G
Junior World Ski Championships
Gold medal – first place 2002 Tarvisio Downhill
Gold medal – first place 2002 Tarvisio Giant slalom
Gold medal – first place 2002 Tarvisio Combined
Gold medal – first place 2003 Puy St. Vincent Super-G
Gold medal – first place 2004 Maribor Combined
Bronze medal – third place 2001 Verbier Combined
Bronze medal – third place 2003 Puy St. Vincent Downhill
Bronze medal – third place 2004 Maribor Super-G

Julia Marie Mancuso (born March 9, 1984) is an American retired World Cup alpine ski racer, Olympic gold medalist and podcast host. She won the giant slalom at the 2006 Winter Olympics, and was the silver medalist in both downhill and combined in 2010, and the bronze medalist in the combined in 2014. She has also won five medals (two silver and three bronze) at the World Championships and seven races in regular World Cup competition. Her four Olympic medals are the most ever for a female American alpine skier.

Racing career

[edit]

Mancuso made her World Cup debut at the age of 15 at Copper Mountain, Colorado, on November 20, 1999. She was scouted by Patrick Rooney. Mancuso scored her first World Cup points (top-30 finish) during the 2001 season. While Mancuso 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. She was selected for the 2002 Winter Olympics at the age of 17, where she finished 13th in the combined event.[1]

Mancuso's 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. She took her first World Cup podium by finishing second in a super-G in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2006.[2] Her gold medal at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics was unexpected, as she had just three podiums (finishing events in the top three) 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.

Mancuso won the race despite ongoing pain in her right knee, which was finally traced to hip dysplasia.[3] She would finish the 2006 season in eighth place, including podium 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.[3] 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.[citation needed]

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.[4] 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.[5] 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.[6] 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.[7] Her Olympic performances did however lead to a revival in form, as she took 16 World Cup podium finishes and two more World Championship medals over the next four years.[1]

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.[8]

Over the three seasons through 2013, Mancuso was on the World Cup podium in at least 10 races, placing well in the season standings in varied events. But she finished in the top 15 in only one of the several late-2013 events that launched the 2014 season, and decided to take a break from the World Cup circuit to refresh for the 2014 Olympics.[9] Mancuso's strategy worked, as she won her fourth Olympic medal, a bronze, in the women's super combined at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, after placing first in the downhill section.[1]

During the 2014-15 season, Mancuso scored what would be her last World Cup podium in a downhill at Lake Louise, finishing third behind team-mates Lindsey Vonn and Stacey Cook as part of an American clean sweep of the podium places.[1] After the end of the season Mancuso had to undergo a hip surgery in order to relieve persistent pain which was disabling her from skiing: as a result she missed the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons.[2]

Mancuso returned to competition in December 2017, failing to finish a World Cup super-G in St. Moritz. She made two more appearances at the super-G races in Val-d'Isère a week later, however she could only manage a best finish of 42nd place.[1] The following month, she announced her retirement from competition, making her final appearance in a downhill at Cortina d'Ampezzo - the venue where she had taken her first World Cup podium - whilst wearing a Wonder Woman outfit and a cape.[2]

Mancuso was known as a particularly strong competitor in major championships: whilst she took a total of 36 World Cup podium finishes from 398 races (nine percent), her nine Olympic and World Championship medals from 40 starts gave her a strike rate of 23 percent.[1][10]

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
2014 29 22 — 30 14 16 —
2015 30 21 — 39 11 13 12
2016 31 hip surgery, out for these 2 seasons
2017 32
2018 33 — — — — — —

Source:[11]

Race podiums

[edit]
Season Date Location Discipline Place
2006 27 Jan 2006 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Super-G 2nd
28 Jan 2006 Downhill 2nd
4 Feb 2006 Ofterschwang, Germany Giant slalom 3rd
2007 19 Dec 2006 Val-d'Isère, France Downhill 1st
20 Dec 2006 Downhill 2nd
13 Jan 2007 Altenmarkt, Austria Downhill 3rd
14 Jan 2007 Super combined 1st
19 Jan 2007 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Super-G 1st
20 Jan 2007 Downhill 2nd
21 Jan 2007 Giant slalom 2nd
2 Mar 2007 Tarvisio, Italy Super combined 2nd
3 Mar 2007 Downhill 1st
4 Mar 2007 Super-G 3rd
2008 27 Oct 2007 Sölden, Austria Giant slalom 2nd
21 Dec 2007 St. Anton, Austria Downhill 3rd
22 Dec 2007 Super combined 3rd
28 Dec 2007 Lienz, Austria Giant slalom 2nd
20 Jan 2008 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Super-G 2nd
22 Feb 2008 Whistler, Canada Downhill 3rd
2010 7 Mar 2010 Crans-Montana, Switzerland Super-G 3rd
2011 5 Dec 2010 Lake Louise, Canada Super-G 3rd
22 Jan 2011 Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Downhill 2nd
27 Feb 2011 Åre, Sweden Super-G 3rd
6 Mar 2011 Tarvisio, Italy Super-G 2nd
16 Mar 2011 Lenzerheide, Switzerland Downhill 1st
2012 26 Nov 2011 Aspen, USA Giant slalom 3rd
4 Dec 2011 Lake Louise, Canada Super-G 3rd
7 Jan 2012 Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria Downhill 2nd
5 Feb 2012 Garmisch, Germany Super-G 1st
21 Feb 2012 Moscow, Russia City event 1st
15 Mar 2012 Schladming, Austria Super-G 2nd
2013 2 Dec 2012 Lake Louise, Canada Super-G 2nd
8 Dec 2012 St. Moritz, Switzerland Super-G 3rd
1 Mar 2013 Garmisch, Germany Super-G 2nd
3 Mar 2013 Super-G 3rd
2015 6 Dec 2014 Lake Louise, Canada Downhill 3rd

World Championship results

[edit]
  Year    Age   Slalom   Giant 
 slalom 		 Super-G Downhill Combined
2003 18 DNF1 — 21 — 7
2005 20 8 3 3 — 9
2007 22 — 5 6 10 2
2009 24 — 18 DNF — DNF1
2011 26 DNF1 16 2 6 7
2013 28 — 22 3 5 8
2015 30 — — 9 16 15

Olympic results

[edit]
  Year    Age   Slalom   Giant 
 slalom 		 Super-G Downhill Combined
2002 17 — — — — 13
2006 21 — 1 11 7 9
2010 25 — 8 9 2 2
2014 29 — DNF1 8 8 3

Lifestyle and endorsements

[edit]
Mancuso in January 2011

Mancuso's nickname among her U.S. Ski Team teammates and fans is "Super Jules".[12] Following her Olympic gold medal in 2006, a ski run formerly called "Exhibition" at Squaw Valley Ski Resort was renamed "Julia's Gold".[3]

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.[13] Mancuso also models lingerie and has been memorably quoted as saying, "I think underwear is my calling. You can be feminine and fast."[14]

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".[15] She switched to Völkl skis and Marker bindings following the 2010 season; she was previously with Rossignol.[16] Mancuso changed equipment suppliers after the 2012 season and now uses Head skis, boots, and bindings.[17]

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.[18] She also starred in a commercial for 24 Hour Fitness called 'Reach Your Potential', directed by Brent Roske. In 2012, Mancuso appeared in the GoPro Hero3 video promotion.[19]

Personal life

[edit]

Of Italian descent, Mancuso was born in Reno, Nevada, and grew up in the nearby Lake Tahoe area as the middle of three sisters, between older sister April and younger sister Sara. Her father, Ciro Mancuso, was arrested at the family home when Julia was five years old, and was later convicted of running a $140 million marijuana smuggling operation.[20] Her parents divorced in 1992, and her mother Andrea (née Tuffanelli)[3][21] said that Julia "took everything out on the slopes."[20] After his release from prison in 2000, Julia and her father became close.[20] Ciro'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, Ciro Mancuso was allowed to keep $5 million in proceeds from his trafficking business.

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

She dated Norwegian alpine skier Aksel Lund Svindal for four years, until they decided to go their separate ways in September 2013. During her post-2015 injury layoff, Mancuso married surfer Dylan Fish.[1] In July 2019, Mancuso gave birth to their son Sonny Fish Mancuso.[22]

In her spare time, Mancuso enjoys participating in other sports like surfing or freeride skiing.[citation needed] In 2016, she appeared in the Redbull Media House movie "Shades of Winter. Between" starring alongside other extreme sport performers.[citation needed]

Being the influential figure she is in Lake Tahoe, Mancuso has fostered relationships with many young racers and even sells and gives them her old racing suits.[citation needed]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f g Shinn, Peggy (19 January 2018). "Julia Mancuso Retires As Most Decorated U.S. Women's Alpine Skier In Olympic History". United States Olympic Committee. Archived from the original on January 19, 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  2. ^ a b c "Julia Mancuso, four-time Olympic medalist, retires from skiing". cbsnews.com. 19 January 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d Whiting, Sam (November 26, 2006). "Julia's Gold: Neither sleet, nor snow, nor familial dysfunction will knock Julia Mancuso off form". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved March 23, 2007.
  4. ^ Dampf, Andrew (February 17, 2010). "Vonn captures gold; Mancuso silver". Associated Press.
  5. ^ SI.com (February 18, 2010). "Vonn falls in super-combined, fails to place; Mancuso grabs silver". CNN. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  6. ^ Tim Layden (February 24, 2010). "Vonn's crash derails unlucky teammate Mancuso". Sports Illustrated. Archived from the original on March 1, 2010.
  7. ^ Dale Robertson (February 25, 2010). "Mancuso can't salvage medal in giant slalom". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008.
  8. ^ Dale Robertson (March 15, 2010). "Alpine skiers pledge WCup prize money to Japan". Associated Press. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008.
  9. ^ "Sports Briefing: Mancuso Will Take a Break". The New York Times. Associated Press. December 31, 2013. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008.
  10. ^ Zaccardi, Nick (19 January 2018). "Julia Mancuso retires, joins NBC Olympics for PyeongChang". NBCSports.com. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  11. ^ "Julia Mancuso". FIS. World Cup season standings. Retrieved March 16, 2014.
  12. ^ "Julia Mancuso Olympic Skier is 'Super Jules'". Bitten and Bound. February 19, 2010. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008.
  13. ^ "Racy! Olympic skier launches lingerie line". New York: MSNBC. Associated Press. February 11, 2010. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved February 11, 2010.
  14. ^ Longmore, Andrew (February 11, 2007). "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). Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved March 24, 2007.
  15. ^ "Lange introduces "new" Lange Girl concept; names Mancuso first Lange Girl Athlete". Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved March 23, 2007.
    "Ski Racing Short Films BONUS: Julia Mancuso: Lange Girl". Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved March 23, 2007.
  16. ^ Ski Racing.com – Mancuso joins Marker Volkl Team – 2010-05-04
  17. ^ "Julia Mancuso signs three year deal with Head skis". Ski Racing.com. April 2, 2012. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008.
  18. ^ "Visa Go World Julia Mancuso". The Inspiration Room. February 13, 2010. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved February 17, 2010.
  19. ^ "GoPro HERO3: Almost as Epic as the HERO3+". YouTube. 17 October 2012. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved October 17, 2012.
  20. ^ a b c Layden, Tim (February 13, 2006). "Skiing is believing". Sports Illustrated. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  21. ^ Brady, Eric (February 10, 2014). "Mancuso's first thought after stellar run: Her late grandpa". USA Today. Retrieved March 1, 2014.
  22. ^ Miller, Darcy. "BABY BOOM! OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS JULIA MANCUSO AND CULLEN JONES EACH WELCOME THEIR FIRST CHILD". Team USA.org. Archived from the original on July 13, 2019.
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