Lenzerheide: Overall hopes fade, but Mancuso forges on

She entered the season with two heavy burdens — the label of Olympic champion to live up to, and a surgically repaired hip. A half year later, Julia Mancuso has seen her hopes of an overall championship fade in Marlies Schild’s glow, but Mancuso is content with a season that has legitimized her on the world stage.
    “I’ve tried to keep it out of my mind,” Mancuso said Thursday after finishing seventh in the World Cup Finals super G. “I don’t really think there’s a chance to win [the overall] anymore, but I can definitely still hang in there.

LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland — She entered the season with two heavy burdens — the label of Olympic champion to live up to, and a surgically repaired hip. A half year later, Julia Mancuso has seen her hopes of an overall championship fade in Marlies Schild’s glow, but Mancuso is content with a season that has legitimized her on the world stage.
    “I’ve tried to keep it out of my mind,” Mancuso said Thursday after finishing seventh in the World Cup Finals super G. “I don’t really think there’s a chance to win [the overall] anymore, but I can definitely still hang in there.
    She currently occupies third in the ever-shuffling women’s points race, but Schild now is in a healthy position thanks to her third-place finish in the super G.
    “Coming into this week, I was excited to just be in contention and be in the running,” Mancuso said. “With a couple of good speed races, anything could have happened, but unfortunately the downhill didn’t really go my way and the super G in the same way … from the later start positions you had to ski exceptionally well. Renate [Goetschl] did that yesterday but not too many other people from the back were able to punch in there. Then today just showed again that it was tough to put in a good time. Nikki [Hosp] did the best job from the back and she came in fifth so, as far as the conditions holding up or if it was meant to be, it just wasn’t.”
    Mancuso is mathematically still alive in her bid to become the first American women’s overall champ Since Tamara McKinney in 1983. But it would take two podium efforts in giant slalom and slalom and probably some DNFs from Schild and Hosp. Schild has been unbeatable in slalom this season, and that’s Mancuso weakest discipline.
    “My GS is going well — I’ve had some really good first runs and I just need to stay a little more consistent in the second runs,” Mancuso said. “I’m looking to give myself another chance on Sunday. In slalom, I’ve been struggling all year in the regular slaloms, but having some really good combined slaloms, so I think it’s just a matter of putting one or two full runs together.”
    Schild leads the overall standings with 1,442 points, followed by Hosp with 1,372 and Mancuso with 1,332. Goetschl is next with 1,300 points.
    Schild’s speed success — second in Wednesday’s downhill and third Thursday — has come somewhat unexpectedly, much like that of Austrian men’s counterpart (and boyfriend) Benni Raich, who has shed the slalom specialist label to pick up key points in his own overall battle with Aksel Lund Svindal.
    “It’s a good hill for her because it’s technical and she’s a good technical skier,” Mancuso said of Lenzerheide’s Silvano Beltrametti speed track. “The last time we were here she skied really well. … Ski racing is a lot about confidence. If you’re really confident on a hill and you know you can excel there, I think it makes a big difference. She had good races here two years ago and that definitely carried over.”
    Thursday, U.S. coach Alex Hoedlmoser said several skiers, including Mancuso, skied over a rock which broke through the snow at the top of the course. Goetschl stopped after going over it and Canadian Britt Janyk also stopped after ripping an edge of her skis when she struck the rock.
    “It was a little tricky at the top, and we don’t know how much it affected Julia’s skiing, but she went over it and her skis were chattering all the way down. She skied the middle section pretty well, but that couldn’t have helped her,” Hoedlmoser said.
    Mancuso chimed in on the FIS proposal of eliminating super G from the World Cup calendar in favor of a reduced schedule or more super combined (one run of super G and one run of slalom).
    “I think super G is a really fun event,” she said. “The point that they want to have less races or spread it out more, that would make sense. But I think super G is a really fun event and I enjoy it. It would be a bummer if we didn’t have it any more.”
    Thursday morning, Europeans woke up to their German-language daily newspaper Blick to find a color photo of Mancuso doing a mock striptease in some podium frolicking with Swiss racer Didier Cuche.
    “I heard about it,” Mancuso said of the photo. “I guess I’ve got to be careful where I take my clothes off.”