Turin, Italy 2006 Winter Olympic Games

Profile: Trying not to think too much

Highlights
Lake Tahoe's Julia Mancuso is setting records and collecting medals at an impressive pace. She started World Cup racing and was a NorAm champion at 16, competed in the Olympics at 17, had set a U.S. mark for Junior World Championships before she was out of her teens, and started her twenties by establishing a record for most consecutive U.S. championships top-3s.

Update
Mancuso comes into the Olympic season with a huge reservoir of confidence from her breakout season of 2005 when she became the first U.S. woman since Picabo Street in 1996 to grab two medals at the World Championships and five top-5 World Cup results, scoring in all five disciplines, including combined. "It was a reward for all of my hard work," she said. "Winning the second run in the St. Moritz GS by almost a second really stuck out in my mind as the race where my body and mind connected and I realized that I could race to my potential." Mancuso's double bronze (GS, SG) at 2005 Worlds is first time a U.S. woman won two medals at a World

Championships since Picabo Street in 1996 (DH gold, SG bronze). Her seventh-place ranking in World Cup giant slalom standings was a U.S. best since Tamara McKinney was ranked third in 1984.

Start-up
Mancuso was on skis at 2 at Squaw Valley but didn’t race until 8. Then she started making up for lost time. She was named to the 2000 Development Team and her World Cup debut came at 15 years, eight months, 11 days when she narrowly missed making the top-30 cut in a slalom at Copper Mountain.

Personal
Raced in her first half-triathlon in this summer ('05) at Donner Lake (outside Truckee, CA) where she raised more than $2,200 for charity and finished fourth of 17 in her age class (her time was 3 hours 9 minutes)... Older sister April was on the 2000 Development Team, too...Mancuso calls on her Italian heritage to produce killer mac-and-cheese...A soccer player and varsity track athlete at North Tahoe High, she still enjoys soccer and tries to shoehorn water-skiing into her schedule. Coming from Tahoe, Mancuso also enjoys camping, hiking, mountain-biking...Loves surfing...Mantra: “I do what I love and love what I do”...Races with good-luck “Super Jules” underwear of her own design.