First Medal for Julia Mancuso

It's California's Julia Mancuso who collected the first medal for the ambitious US women's team on the demanding Deborah Compagnoni course in Santa Caterina. The talented skier from Squaw Valley came in 3rd in the first women's race - her first podium in a major event. This season, the 20-year-old collected several top-10 finishes in all specialties including a 4th place in GS here earlier this month and a 5th in Super-G in Altenmarkt.

Julia was a surprised at the end of the day but also delighted. She has been fighting hard for this in recent seasons.
“My run was OK, not as good as I hoped so I was not expecting at all to reach the podium after my race,” she said. “But then, more and more skiers had problems and at the end I was 3rd - just incredible. The last minutes were hard on my nerves - I could not watch Renate Goetschl's race on the big screen, one of my teammates made me a race report. I was so nervous!”

“I think the snow was a little different than we expected. I thought it would be grippier but it was fast and I made some mistakes from that, going a little straighter than I wanted in some places,” Julia added. “It was faster than when we were here three weeks ago and that surprised me a bit.”

Eight medal at the Junior Worlds

Mancuso, who set the U.S. record for Junior World Championships medals at eight including five in gold, came to Bormio with excellent results in all four disciplines although she hasn't produced a World Cup top-3 so far. She chatted easily with journalists in the finish as she waited for the rest of the top guns to race. She skied 16th and her time was good enough for her to take the lead. Then, when she was knocked out of the top spot by Lucia Recchia, she made her way to the Tv stations and the American reporters.

“It wasn't my best race but I'll take it,” she said at that point, watching as, one by one, the last top SG racers, according to the WCSL list, made errors, skiing off course, crashing, missing gates, going wide on turns...and skiing away from the top-3 podium.

“It was really crazy at the end, I was amazed and so happy,” she also said.
At the customary press conference, she explained that her season was very good so far and she felt confident. “I wasn't expecting much coming in here and I think that helped a lot, not having strong expectations beside achieving a strong race. I have a smooth style, so for me I had no problem to find a good rhythm at the end.”

“It's a great way to start such a big event. I'll skip the downhill and do my best to score a good result in the combined and the other technical races.”

Manuèle Lang