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Nothing TO LOSE
JULIA MANCUSO EARNS HER FIRST WORLD CUP WIN OF THE
SEASON BY PUTTING IT ALL ON THE LINE BY ERIC WILLIAMS
Julia Mancuso returned to the hill where she won a world championships silver medal last season to secure her sixth career World Cup victory in Garmisch.
“If that wasn’t good enough, then I don’t know what is,” thought
Julia Mancuso as she crossed the finish line of the Garmisch super G
on Feb. 5.
The gutsy, one minute, 20.50-second run down a bumpy Kandahar
course in flat light was indeed good enough to net Mancuso her sixth
career World Cup win and her first since taking the downhill victory at last
season’s World Cup Finals. But it almost didn’t happen.
A few days after her victorious run, Mancuso revealed to her blog fans
that she nearly pulled the plug on the Garmisch stop altogether. “I became completely tired out of being on the road, and the cookie shop in
Squaw Valley was calling my name,” wrote Mancuso, who was pondering trading a few races for some family time back home after a disappointing fifth-place result in the St. Moritz downhill. “It wasn’t the skiing
that was bringing me down, so I knew I would have fun once I got back in
the start gate. ‘Nothing to lose’ was my motto going into Sunday.”
Mancuso, a three-time Olympic medalist and four-time world championship podium finisher, is known as a “big game” ski racer. Key to her
return last season to the top-five in the overall World Cup standings after
a three-year absence was the confidence she gained by earning a silver
medal in the 2011 World Championships super G on the same Garmisch
hill.
A year ago, the thinly-covered and hard Kandahar speed course received some criticism by top racers including Lindsey Vonn for being
too aggressive for the women. Mancuso shrugged her shoulders at the
