TORINO: Alpine: Mancuso's gold puts questions of medals on hold

By Published On: February 24th, 2006Comments Off on TORINO: Alpine: Mancuso's gold puts questions of medals on hold

TORINO: Alpine: Mancuso’s gold puts questions of medals on hold{mosimage}SESTRIERE, Italy – When Julia Mancuso crossed the finish line with the Olympic gold medal in giant slalom, the pressure dissipated like an exploding balloon. While Mancuso leaped and fist-pumped and flopped in the snow in elation, the usually stoic U.S. Ski Team CEO Bill Marolt hugged everyone in sight. The entire U.S. camp, so glum 24 hours previously, celebrated like there was no tomorrow.

The medal-deficient women’s U.S. Ski Team and staff had been hounded from the first few races about what was perceived to be under-performance. Mancuso’s gold in the final women’s race of the Games may not have answered all the questions, but at least they were put on hold. Two medals still remains six shy of the stated goal of eight, but it’s still twice as good as one.

The U.S. women had four medal contenders coming into these Games, as measured by at least one podium appearance or top-five result: Mancuso, Lindsey Kildow, Kristina Koznick and Caroline Lalive.

Lalive was the first to go on injured reserve – a shattered knee cap. Koznick soon followed with a torn ACL, leaving just Mancuso and Kildow. But when Kildow crashed and burned in the second day of downhill training, then there was just one. Mancuso was the sole survivor among possible medal contenders and left to single-handedly shoulder the burden of mega-Olympic expectations. And with one event remaining on the Olympic schedule, it was now or never.

The U.S. women were aware of the pressure they were under, but had confidence that Mancuso would come through. ‘Everyone was starting to worry we weren’t going to medal here, that we weren’t living up to our expectations’ said a giddy Stacey Cook, who finished 23rd. ‘But we kept our cool the whole time. It’s so awesome that she was able to put two runs together and is the gold medalist.’

Sarah Schleper, who crashed on her second run after her first run put her in 12th, also kept the faith in her teammate. ‘I know you guys were asking the other day, about no medals from the women’ said Schleper to a gaggle of the press corps after Mancuso’s win. ‘I thought Julia could come through. She’s a big-event skier; she’s a great GS skier with a good feel for the snow.’

Marolt invests as much concern in his ski team members as any parent. To hear the endless charges of non-performance hurt professionally and emotionally. A gold medal for Mancuso will not put an end to the questions, because the team will indeed come up short of eight medals, but still, Marolt has no regrets about setting the bar so high.

‘We all have goals, and sometimes you hit them and sometimes you don’t. But the fact is we set them and believe we could hit them based on results over the past four years’ said Marolt. ‘We’ve competed toe to toe and jaw to jaw with every country and athlete from around the world and we came in here believing we could do it.’

The grumblings about the medal-less squad were heard loud and clear by Mancuso. Rather than wilt under the additional pressure, she couldn’t wait for the GS to have the opportunity to prove the naysayers wrong.

‘I had been waiting two weeks for the GS’ said Mancuso. ‘I’ve always been looking at this event as my strongest chance to medal; it’s too bad it came up last, or maybe that’s a good thing. But I’ve been excited to show the world what I can do.’

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About the Author: Pete Rugh