Mancuso Wins Moscow Night Race
MOSCOW, Russia (Feb. 21) - Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley, CA) ripped through the head-to-head style parallel slalom to win under the lights for her second Audi FIS Alpine World Cup win this season. Teammate Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) tacked another 60 points to her immense overall World Cup lead with third on the 170 foot tall ramp built in Luznhiki Olympic Complex as thousands of fans braved the fridgid Moscow tempuratures. The event, presented by Soelden, the official European Training base of the U.S. Ski Team, capped a brilliant showcase of alpine skiing in Russia, host country for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley, CA) won the Moscow night race for her second World Cup victory this season.
- Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) ousted German Maria Hoefl-Riesch to take third and earn 60 points toward the overall title.
- The bracket style competiton was held on 170 foot tall, 535 foot long slope in Luzhniki Olympic Park.
- Each match featured two runs with the fastest racer from the first earning a time advantage on the second.
- Mancuso knocked out Vonn in the semifinal and Austrian Mikaela Kirchgasser in the final to win.
- Vonn was down .30 to Riesch after the first run of the small final, but won the second run.
- The race was presented by Soelden, the official European Training Base of the U.S. Ski Team.
- Frenchman Alexis Pinterault won the men's event as Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) was knocked out in the first round.
- The women's World Cup moves to Bansko, Bulgaria, while the men race in Crans Montana, Switzerland.
QUOTES
Julia Mancuso
Events like this are really exciting, anything can happen. You're bummed out if you lose and when you win, it's a big surprise. I knew that if you can have a good start, you can make up any amount of time, so I really focused on my start
Kirchi [Mikaela Kirchgasser] is a great slalom skier and she was really skiing fast in her heats, so I just had to plow down those gates.
This is a very unique event. It's an incredible hill that they built. I've been pleasantly surprised with Russia. The hospitality has been great, the locations are awesome, it's been a fun few weeks in Russia.
I think it's really cool for everyone who lives in cities to see events like this and to have exposure to ski racing. It's also cool to have big ski resorts like Soelden sponsoring things like this to show that the ski world is incredible. I hope we have more city events. This helps bring the skiing to the people and helps inspire them to go out and take that ski vacation that they've been dreaming to do.
Lindsey Vonn
I'm excited to be on the podium today, but I'm also really happy for Jules for winning. She skied amazing. These parallel events are really tough, you can't think about it, you just have to go for it.
After my first run against Maria, I didn't think that I'd make the podium - I was three tenths behind and I made it back. I think my last run was the best run of the day and that's what put me on the podium.
I wasn't really sure what it was going to be like in Russia and I was pleasantly surprised. These races were a lot of fun and I can see now how excited this country is about ski racing and I think that's only going to increase as we get closer to the Olympics in 2014.
It's really important to have the support of Soelden, not just as a training partner for our team, but also to have them as a sponsor here in Moscow. I think it helps bring a lot of excitement for the sport to Moscow. They've done a great job presenting our sport and also presenting Austria and Central Europe to everyone. It's a great relationship for the U.S. Ski Team and for ski sport in general.
RESULTS
Official Results
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