Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
ARNIE STAPLETON
Associated Press
ASPEN, Colo. - Olympic gold medalist Julia Mancuso is downplaying her status as the favorite to win the giant slalom this World Cup season.
With Janica Kostelic sitting out the season, World Cup overall champion Anja Paerson recuperating from a knee operation and defending Aspen GS winner Maria Rienda Contreras out for the year with a knee injury, it would seem as though Mancuso has a clear path to the top.
Not so fast, said Mancuso, who makes her first start Saturday as the headliner when the women's World Cup tour stops in Aspen for two days.
"Well, if we're talking about operations, I can probably join in the crowd with my hip operation," Mancuso said. "I just go out there and do the best for me and myself. I'm not really picking favorites, I'm just picking every day as my favorite day."
Mancuso needed hip surgery to repair a torn labrum after her gold-medal win at the 2006 Olympics. Her hip had bothered her for two years, complicating her dry-land training. Although U.S. women's coach Patrick Riml said he's expecting Mancuso to earn a podium finish this weekend, Mancuso said this could be a transitional year for her.
"This year's going to be a little bit of a struggle just staying recovered, I guess," Mancuso said. "But I feel 100 percent when I get in that start gate. So, for me, that's all that really matters."
The free-spirited Mancuso, who sported a tiara in Turin, doesn't have a big head with a gold medal around her neck. She said little has changed for her since becoming the first American to win the Olympic GS gold since 1984.
"I'm just going into the season with a little more confidence," she said. "Not much has changed other than the fact that I know I'm capable of winning and I'm going to try and go out there and try to keep progressing."
The GS opens the Sirius Satellite Radio Aspen Winternational on Saturday with the slalom on Sunday. Resi Stiegler of Jackson Hole, Wyo., is hoping to pick up momentum on home snow after finishing 10th in the season's first slalom event earlier this month in Levi, Finland.