Vonn, Mancuso take different paths to top

For two U.S. skiers, different approaches are getting similar and spectacular results.
    Lindsey Vonn is married, settled and at home in the team hotel. Julia Mancuso is single, has a bit of a wild streak and travels the World Cup circuit in her personal bus.
CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy — For two U.S. skiers, different approaches are getting similar and spectacular results.
    Lindsey Vonn is married, settled and at home in the team hotel. Julia Mancuso is single, has a bit of a wild streak and travels the World Cup circuit in her personal bus.
    In interviews with The Associated Press — Vonn in the hotel, Mancuso in her bus — the 23-year-olds talked about the divergent paths they are taking to the apex of their sport.
    Vonn, known as Lindsey Kildow before marrying former U.S. Ski Team member Thomas Vonn in September, has established herself as the pre-eminent downhiller on the women's World Cup circuit. She has won three of five races in the discipline this season. One more — which would be the ninth downhill victory of her career — and Vonn will match childhood idol Picabo Street and Daron Rahlves as the most successful U.S. downhillers of all time.
    Vonn gives a lot of the credit to her husband, who travels the circuit with her full time.
    "He knows everything about ski racing and it's awesome to have someone around who has that much experience and who really cares what's best for me and only me," Vonn said. "I think being married is definitely a very positive thing for me."
    Mancuso won the giant slalom at the 2006 Turin Olympics and has recorded five top-three finishes in four different disciplines this season. Unlike Vonn, she doesn't see herself settling down anytime soon.
    "It's hard to imagine," Mancuso said. "I mean we're the same age and it's like she's married and has a house and her life is planned out for her.
    "But it doesn't seem too different, she seems to be having a good time, with her husband," Mancuso added, pausing for a moment before saying "husband."
    Wearing a red World Wildlife Fund T-shirt with the words "hotter than I should be" across the chest — and a picture of the earth in place of the 'o' in 'hotter' — Mancuso is at home on her bus, which she shares with a manager and personal trainer.
    "It's just a great way to keep a little home environment on the road and have people around," she said. "It's expensive, but I think it pays for itself through my skiing well and just feeling at home being on the road for so long."
    Mancuso met her manager, Stephan Boeker, and trainer, Kazuko Ikeda, in Hawaii, where she spends her summers surfing and enjoying other water sports.
    "Really, they're just my friends, so we have a good time," Mancuso said.
    The bus features six bunks, a kitchen, flat-screen TV, DVD player, VCR, stationary bike, yoga mat and other fitness equipment.
    Mancuso keeps plenty of healthy food around and she's got two toy guitars to play Guitar Hero, the video game of choice among U.S. skiers.
    Halfway through the interview, Mancuso's good friend, British skier Chemmy Alcott, walked in with a real guitar — colored completely pink.
    Mancuso and Alcott are planning a trip to Africa this summer in support of the nonprofit group Right to Play, which uses sports to help disadvantaged children.
    "We're going to combine it with some sort of a task, which might be climbing (Mount) Kilimanjaro," Mancuso said as a blizzard raged outside at this resort in the Italian Dolomites.
    Vonn isn't interested in having her own bus.
    "I don't really think it's necessary for me," she said. "It's tough traveling, but I've got everything I need in the hotel. The biggest reason I don't have an RV is because it's a pain in the butt. I mean, you have to find somewhere to park it, you have to find someone who wants to give you electricity and find water. There are a lot of logistics that go behind parking a huge bus in a small Alpine town."
    In April, the U.S. team changed its rules to allow skiers to stay in private motor homes if they are in the top 15 of the overall World Cup standings. That didn't stop Bode Miller — the first American skier to start using a mobile home — from leaving the squad in May to train and race on his own.
    Both Vonn, second in the overall standings after last weekend's races, and Mancuso, fourth overall, were content to stay on the squad.
    "Bode will do whatever he wants to do and he's a great athlete and his decisions are his own, I just know I'm not going to ever split from the team," Vonn said. "I'm a team girl."
    Vonn, however, spends a significant chunk of her time with another team, the one provided by her sponsor, Red Bull.
    The energy drink company provides Vonn with a conditioning coach and a physical therapist.
    "It's not like we're our own separate team, but they're there to give me help when I need it," Vonn said. "I still do stuff with the team like volleyball and team sports. It's nice to have more people there helping you. The Vonntourage."
    Vonn's decision to drop her maiden name surprised some people.
    "Everyone was freaking out about that — family included," she said. "But I just think it's very traditional and everyone in my family did it and it's early enough in my career where people will be able to adjust. It's really just cool to be part of another family. I've got a bigger support group."
    Her husband, whose best career result was ninth in the super-G at the 2002 Olympics, certainly liked the choice.
    "It's bringing the Vonn name a little more fame than it had when I was racing," he said.
    But the switch has caused some confusion.
    "Most people now think that I'm a new person," Vonn said. "A lot of spectators think I'm this new girl, new person on the World Cup. It's pretty funny. They get so confused."
    There's no confusing the rivalry between Vonn and Mancuso. The emotions were on full display one weekend this season when Vonn won two races ahead of Mancuso, who finished second and third, then started crying.
    "I can't say why she was crying, but I think she was a little frustrated with some equipment problems she was having," Vonn said. "I'd like to think that it wasn't that I beat her, but I don't know. I'm not holding it against her."
    While they are not best friends, Vonn and Mancuso get along.
    "It's tough because she's not around that often. She's kind of on her bus," Vonn said. "We get along great, we're friends. She was at the wedding."
    While Vonn doesn't plan to have children until she quits skiing, her family of cows is growing.
    Vonn won a cow for her 2005 downhill victory in Val d'Isere, France, and surprised race organizers when she decided to keep it at the U.S. team's European base in Kirchberg, Austria. Vonn named the cow Olam and then called the c
alf it had last season Sonny.
    "She's pregnant again. I'm really excited," Vonn said. "She was pregnant this summer, but they walked up to the … top of the mountain and she lost the baby because I think it was pretty stressful hiking up the mountain. But now she's pregnant again. She's a pretty famous cow in Austria."
    You know you've arrived when your cow is famous.

 — The Associated Press