SESTRIERE, Italy - Hooked on the drama of Olympic figure skating, Julia Mancuso couldn't tear herself away from Thursday night's broadcast of the ladies' final, even though her last race of the 2006 Games, Alpine skiing's giant slalom, was due to start at 9:30 a.m. the next day. She couldn't find the sister who had promised to cook her dinner, either, so Mancuso munched on a Pop-Tart and made do with leftover pasta.
Too little sleep and too many empty carbohydrates hardly sounds like the recipe for an Olympic medal. But Mancuso, 21, a breezy Californian who occasionally competes with a tiara on her head, struck gold nonetheless Friday by flinging herself fearlessly down a fog-shrouded, twisty, ice-packed course that sent more accomplished skiers careering into fences and slamming their poles in frustration.
Mancuso completed the two required runs amid a snowstorm in 2 minutes 9.19 seconds - more than half a second ahead of Finland's Tanja Poutiainen, who took silver, and more than a second ahead of bronze-medalist Anna Ottosson of Sweden.
In claiming the unexpected gold, Mancuso did her part to salvage what had been a calamitous Olympics for the much ballyhooed U.S. ski team, which arrived here touting a goal of winning eight medals - four times as many as the squad won at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
With eight of 10 Alpine events completed entering Friday's race, U.S. skiers had won just one medal: gold in the men's combined, delivered by Ted Ligety, 21, who, like Mancuso, had never before won an international event. On Friday, Mancuso single-handedly doubled the team's medal tally and snapped an Olympic Alpine medal drought by U.S. women that dated to 1998, when Picabo Street won gold in the Super-G at Nagano.
With her boyfriend, U.S. downhill skier Steven Nyman, having left Italy days earlier, Mancuso thrust her arms in the air when her winning time was posted, fell back in the snow and, after stepping out of her bindings, planted a kiss on one of her skis.
“I can't believe I just won the Olympics!” she gushed later. “It's weird to say that!”
Like Ligety, Mancuso's former high-school classmate at Park City (Utah) Winter Sports School, Mancuso shone most brightly at these Olympic Games only after a more heralded teammate, Lindsey Kildow, fell from contention. Kildow withdrew from Friday's race, the last alpine event for women, because of lingering lower-back pain from her Feb. 13 crash during training for the women's downhill. She leaves Turin with a best finish of seventh in the Super-G.
“Lindsey tried to ski today; she came out here (for warm-ups) and tried to give it a go,” said U.S. Alpine director Jesse Hunt. “But with conditions the way they were and poor visibility and the way she felt, it just didn't make a whole lot of sense.”
Snow was swirling outside Mancuso's motor home, parked alongside the athletes' village, when she awoke Friday morning, and a thick blanket of fog had settled on the giant-slalom course across town. She had always dreamed of the perfect Olympics, with blue skies and packed crowds. But the muck outside was nothing like that. It was more like the conditions she grew up skiing in at California's Squaw Valley. And oddly, the gloom worked in Mancuso's favor, sucking any trace of Olympic aura out of the day as she trudged to the starting gate.
What did it matter if the fog and snow meant she couldn't see the course? She learned long ago how to ski as fast as she could in blizzards and powder without benefit of sight. All that mattered, she reminded herself, was knowing where her feet were and knowing how to react when conditions got really tough.
“It felt like home,” Mancuso said later, “so I dug into my roots and trusted myself.”
Mancuso blistered the course in 1 minute 0.89 seconds on the first run - faster than anyone, including Sweden's Anja Paerson, the World Cup points leader in giant slalom and a five-time Olympic medalist.
As the leader after the first run, Mancuso won the right to ski last among the 30 medal contenders in the second run. That meant she'd know exactly what time she had to beat for gold.
Under Olympic rules, a new course is laid out on the same slope for the second giant-slalom run. And this one was far more difficult than the first, with 45 gates (as opposed to 42) around which skiers had to weave as they raced to the bottom. Moreover, the gates had been placed in almost sadistic fashion, with several sharp, tight turns popping up just over a rise to weed out the fleet-footed from the slow, and the complacent from the vigilant.
The casualties mounted quickly: Eleven of 54 skiers veered off course, including American Sarah Schleper, 27, who was supposed to radio back strategic tips to Mancuso, waiting atop the hill. That transmission never came, so Mancuso stepped into the starting gate not knowing what to expect, other than that Poutiainen held the lead with a combined time of 2:09.86.
The crowd fell silent. Then, shouts of “Julia!” “Julia!” rang out. They were coming from the stands, where her parents and grandparents looked on. They were also coming from the carabinieri,@ the Italian policemen who kept guard over skiers at the start, as well as the workers who tended the course - most of them Italian, too, along with a few of Mancuso's former ski instructors from Squaw Valley, who were serving as volunteers so they could watch her race.
The Italians had claimed Mancuso as one of their own because of her sparkly personality and, more importantly, her Italian heritage. Mancuso had always been sketchy about that heritage, but loved to recount the family legend that her great-grandfather on her mother's side had run liquor for Al Capone. And although she spoke no Italian, she had pointed out more than once that her family cooked with lots of olive oil, as if the mere fact were unassailable DNA.
All of this was reason enough for the locals to cheer her name, and the ruckus made Mancuso erupt in a giant smile just as the electronic beep signaled, “GO!”
Instinct took over from there, and she kicked out of the gate with a fury - not thinking about winning or making the podium or even making a particular time, just about skiing her fastest.
After accepting the traditional bouquet that's awarded all Olympic medalists, Mancuso managed to laugh about the ill-fated start to her championship day - from staying up too late, eating lousy food and, in yet another misadventure, forgetting to wear her athlete's credential, which could have gotten her barred from the race course.
Asked to write a moral to the story, Mancuso smiled and said: “Well, the lesson she learned is that it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is believing in yourself, kicking out of the start gate, and leaving everything else behind.”
Mancuso completed the two required runs amid a snowstorm in 2 minutes 9.19 seconds - more than half a second ahead of Finland's Tanja Poutiainen, who took silver, and more than a second ahead of bronze-medalist Anna Ottosson of Sweden.
In claiming the unexpected gold, Mancuso did her part to salvage what had been a calamitous Olympics for the much ballyhooed U.S. ski team, which arrived here touting a goal of winning eight medals - four times as many as the squad won at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
With eight of 10 Alpine events completed entering Friday's race, U.S. skiers had won just one medal: gold in the men's combined, delivered by Ted Ligety, 21, who, like Mancuso, had never before won an international event. On Friday, Mancuso single-handedly doubled the team's medal tally and snapped an Olympic Alpine medal drought by U.S. women that dated to 1998, when Picabo Street won gold in the Super-G at Nagano.
With her boyfriend, U.S. downhill skier Steven Nyman, having left Italy days earlier, Mancuso thrust her arms in the air when her winning time was posted, fell back in the snow and, after stepping out of her bindings, planted a kiss on one of her skis.
“I can't believe I just won the Olympics!” she gushed later. “It's weird to say that!”
Like Ligety, Mancuso's former high-school classmate at Park City (Utah) Winter Sports School, Mancuso shone most brightly at these Olympic Games only after a more heralded teammate, Lindsey Kildow, fell from contention. Kildow withdrew from Friday's race, the last alpine event for women, because of lingering lower-back pain from her Feb. 13 crash during training for the women's downhill. She leaves Turin with a best finish of seventh in the Super-G.
“Lindsey tried to ski today; she came out here (for warm-ups) and tried to give it a go,” said U.S. Alpine director Jesse Hunt. “But with conditions the way they were and poor visibility and the way she felt, it just didn't make a whole lot of sense.”
Snow was swirling outside Mancuso's motor home, parked alongside the athletes' village, when she awoke Friday morning, and a thick blanket of fog had settled on the giant-slalom course across town. She had always dreamed of the perfect Olympics, with blue skies and packed crowds. But the muck outside was nothing like that. It was more like the conditions she grew up skiing in at California's Squaw Valley. And oddly, the gloom worked in Mancuso's favor, sucking any trace of Olympic aura out of the day as she trudged to the starting gate.
What did it matter if the fog and snow meant she couldn't see the course? She learned long ago how to ski as fast as she could in blizzards and powder without benefit of sight. All that mattered, she reminded herself, was knowing where her feet were and knowing how to react when conditions got really tough.
“It felt like home,” Mancuso said later, “so I dug into my roots and trusted myself.”
Mancuso blistered the course in 1 minute 0.89 seconds on the first run - faster than anyone, including Sweden's Anja Paerson, the World Cup points leader in giant slalom and a five-time Olympic medalist.
As the leader after the first run, Mancuso won the right to ski last among the 30 medal contenders in the second run. That meant she'd know exactly what time she had to beat for gold.
Under Olympic rules, a new course is laid out on the same slope for the second giant-slalom run. And this one was far more difficult than the first, with 45 gates (as opposed to 42) around which skiers had to weave as they raced to the bottom. Moreover, the gates had been placed in almost sadistic fashion, with several sharp, tight turns popping up just over a rise to weed out the fleet-footed from the slow, and the complacent from the vigilant.
The casualties mounted quickly: Eleven of 54 skiers veered off course, including American Sarah Schleper, 27, who was supposed to radio back strategic tips to Mancuso, waiting atop the hill. That transmission never came, so Mancuso stepped into the starting gate not knowing what to expect, other than that Poutiainen held the lead with a combined time of 2:09.86.
The crowd fell silent. Then, shouts of “Julia!” “Julia!” rang out. They were coming from the stands, where her parents and grandparents looked on. They were also coming from the carabinieri,@ the Italian policemen who kept guard over skiers at the start, as well as the workers who tended the course - most of them Italian, too, along with a few of Mancuso's former ski instructors from Squaw Valley, who were serving as volunteers so they could watch her race.
The Italians had claimed Mancuso as one of their own because of her sparkly personality and, more importantly, her Italian heritage. Mancuso had always been sketchy about that heritage, but loved to recount the family legend that her great-grandfather on her mother's side had run liquor for Al Capone. And although she spoke no Italian, she had pointed out more than once that her family cooked with lots of olive oil, as if the mere fact were unassailable DNA.
All of this was reason enough for the locals to cheer her name, and the ruckus made Mancuso erupt in a giant smile just as the electronic beep signaled, “GO!”
Instinct took over from there, and she kicked out of the gate with a fury - not thinking about winning or making the podium or even making a particular time, just about skiing her fastest.
After accepting the traditional bouquet that's awarded all Olympic medalists, Mancuso managed to laugh about the ill-fated start to her championship day - from staying up too late, eating lousy food and, in yet another misadventure, forgetting to wear her athlete's credential, which could have gotten her barred from the race course.
Asked to write a moral to the story, Mancuso smiled and said: “Well, the lesson she learned is that it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is believing in yourself, kicking out of the start gate, and leaving everything else behind.”
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