Ski Racing - March 29, 2010

WAXROOM

Julia Mancuso is the type of ski racer
who chases powder and seeks the steep
and deep when she finds the time (which
she does, somehow). So it’s not too sur-
prising that she entered an extreme
freeskiing contest this spring — the 2010
Nissan Xtreme competition in Verbier,
Switzerland. What’s impressive is that,
among a field of the world’s top freeski-
ers, Mancuso (whose 20-year-old sister,
Sara, took fifth at the recent Freeskiing
World Champs and earned the North
Face Young Gun award) took third. She
chose a line that was fast and harrowing
(the two main factors that rank athletes
in extreme contests) down the cliffs and
near-vertical pitches of the North Face of
the Bec des Rosses.

The only women who beat her were freeskiing regulars: Jess McMillan in second place and the freeride world champion Ane Enderud of Norway in first. Mancuso said the contest was “intimidating” and pointed out that not all pro alpine racers could do that sort of thing (much less podium in it). No kidding.

That’s a serious set of, er, jewels there, Jules

Whiteface Time Machine For most of the second run of the women’s GS at Lake Placid’s U.S. Alpine National Champhionships, you couldn’t even see a gate, let alone a racer coming down the course. But thanks to a fire-engine red Descente suit with purple epaulets, Kaylin Richardson managed to stand out — and earned hearty clapping from the small crowd gathered on Draper’s Drop. It was the last Nationals race of Richardson’s career, and the retiring racer decided to celebrate by purchasing this beauty from a Lake Placid thrift shop. After providing a one-wom-an fashion show to the press corps, she ‘fessed up about her final run on the foggy course. “You couldn’t see a lot,” she said. “But you didn’t miss much by not seeing much.” Well, the ski racing world will miss Kaylin. Good luck!

Proud Papa

Shortly after winning the 2010 World Cup slalom title, Austria’s Reinfried Herbst brought home his new crystal globe. Girlfriend Manuela Unterkircher looks pretty happy, but their newborn daughter, Lilly, looks more interested in the pacifier.

Roll out the red carpet

Wheaties box, check. Custom dress made by fashion designer Tory Burch, check. Full-on tour of New York City’s most high-profile red carpet events (Knicks game, Bounty Hunter premiere, Rolex ads for The Wall Street Journal, etc.) check.

In between the Olympics and the final World Cup races, Lindsey Vonn made quick stops at the respective studios of Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres (Ellen gave her a pair of skis featuring the comedian’s face; Vonn sold them on eBay to raise money for hurricane relief efforts in Haiti and Chile). But since landing back on U.S. soil after gathering her latest lineup of hardware (another overall, downhill and super G globe in addition to her first ever super combined globe), Vonn has been living a whirlwind existence of one celebrity event after another. She even donned some tight leather pants for the Major League Soccer game between the New York Red Bulls and Santos FC (she appeared the field in this NASCAR vehicle with the match ball). She told “The Today Show” folks that a lot more people seem to know her face these days. Imagine that!