Julia and Chemmy Alcott are ditching the downhill and going uphill to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and raise money for Right to Play. Read the PRESS RELEASE HERE.

… and read the newest AP article that hit newspapers 3.9.08.

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland: Julia Mancuso is all too familiar with the Alps. Soon comes Africa, and a different sort of mountain.

But first, the Olympic giant slalom champion wants at least one World Cup victory in the last six races in hopes of salvaging what is so far a winless season. Then she can start preparing to scale Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania this summer.

“At this point I’m looking to win a race,” said Mancuso, who will ski a downhill Saturday in the Swiss Alps. “That would be a really great accomplishment for me this season.”

After winning four World Cup races last season, expectations were high for another big year from the Squaw Valley, Calif., skier who turns 24 on Sunday.

“There have definitely been downs but all in all I’ve learned a lot,” Mancuso said Friday after taking a first look at a remodeled Crans-Montana hill that is staging its first World Cup race in 10 years. “There is an abundance of time and an abundance of races in the future so I’m not really worried about it.”

Mancuso said she felt uncomfortable at the top of the course Friday and stood upright part way down the 1.64-mile slope.

An Italian was again fastest in training, with Nadia Fanchini improving on her second place behind teammate Daniela Ceccarelli on Thursday.

American Lindsey Vonn was second, 0.6 seconds back, although she was technically disqualified for missing a gate.

“It was pretty bumpy all the way down. I was happy with it, as I don’t really do great runs in training,” said Vonn, who hopes to write two new chapters of U.S. ski history in the closing days of the season.

She is looking for her 10th career World Cup downhill win — either on Saturday or at the World Cup finals next week in Bormio, Italy — which would break her out of a tie with Picabo Street and Daron Rahlves.

Vonn also leads the overall standings ahead of Austria’s Nicole Hosp, and could become the first American woman to win the overall World Cup title since Tamara McKinney in 1983.

For Mancuso, Bormio’s giant slalom and super-G next week represent her best chance of getting to the top of the podium.

“There have been some ups and downs in my season so I’m excited to keep pushing for the best in the next races,” she said.

After the season, Mancuso will go right into a fitness program designed to cope with the rigors of hiking up Africa’s highest peak. Mancuso and British skier Chemmy Alcott hope to conquer 19,340-foot Kilimanjaro in June and raise at least $40,000 for the Right To Play organization.

“We’re going to push ourselves to a new limit by climbing the mountain,” said Mancuso, who next week will use her personal Web site to auction race suits, bibs and helmets.

After the expedition they plan to visit children’s health and education projects in Africa run by Right To Play, a worldwide body based in Toronto.

“Julia and I are out-there people and realized that to get the press coverage we want we’ve got to go and do something completely unexpected,” Alcott said. “We’re going there to find ourselves and find out the other side of life. We can realize how fortunate we are to be doing what we’re doing.”

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) -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 Mancuso, second in the overall standings after last weekend’s races, and Vonn, 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 calf 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.

UPDATE: We have been in touch with credible sources that tell us The Epoche Times must have made a mistake in their photo caption and reporting on Marlies being involved with the doping scandal. She is not involved, according to our sources. As far as the article is concerned, we’ll try to get clarification from the newspaper. Stay tuned.

Read the entire Reuters article here: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-5-29/55874.html

[PHOTO] Six Austrian athletes including Marlies Schild (shown competing during the Women’s giant slalom second run at the Alpine Ski World Cup finals in Lenzerheide, 18 March 2007) caught doping at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics were banned for life, the International Olympic Committee said. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images) VIENNA—Austria’s Olympic Committee banned 13 skiing staff from the Olympics on Tuesday and pledged tighter controls after pressure from the world governing body IOC over a doping affair at the 2006 Winter Games. The committee (NOC) also said it would swiftly pay a $1 million fine to the IOC and welcomed the resignation of its vice-president Peter Schroecksnadel, although he remained in his position as the head of Austria’s skiing association. “We, the Austrian Olympic Committee, acknowledge that we did not make certain controls to the extent wished by the IOC, as we trusted our member associations,” the NOC’s president Leo Wallner said at a news conference in Vienna. “We can’t help but apply stricter measures to our member associations in the future,” he said. He reiterated that no link should be made between the doping affair and Austria’s bid to host the 2014 Winter Games in Salzburg. Italian police and doping testers raided the Austrian biathlon and cross-country skiing team headquarters during the 2006 Winter Games in Turin after the appearance of a banned coach, and found blood bags and equipment used for blood doping. While none of the athletes tested positive, the IOC banned six of them last month from competing in any future Olympics following violations of its anti-doping rules.

[Read More...]

Fourteen Banned by AOC for Doping Affair

VIENNA, Austria — The Austrian Olympic Committee imposed lifetime Olympic bans Tuesday on 14 team officials linked to the blood doping scandal at last year’s Torino Games. AOC President Leo Wallner, who announced the action after a special executive board session, said the 14 would be denied accreditation for all future Olympics. Also, any Austrians found guilty of a doping offense in the future will also be banned for life from the Olympics, Wallner said at a news conference. In another move to contain the Torino fallout, Austrian ski federation President Peter Schroecksnadel resigned as a vice president of the AOC. The developments, prompted by pressure from the International Olympic Committee, came as Austria tries to salvage Salzburg’s bid to host the 2014 Winter Games. Salzburg is competing against Sochi, Russia, and Pyeongchang, South Korea. The IOC will select the host city on July 4 in Guatemala City. “We want to bring the Games to Salzburg and with these decisions our chances are intact,” Salzburg Mayor Heinz Schaden said. “I want to repeat that the IOC sentenced individuals and not federations and therefore I am convinced that the doping case does not stand in any way against the 2014 Olympic bid in Salzburg,” Wallner said. The highest-ranking administrator banned was Markus Gandler, the sports director for the cross-country and biathlon teams. The sanction also covers Walter Mayer, the former nordic coach who had been banned by the IOC from two Olympics after a blood-doping case at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. Mayer’s unauthorized presence with the team at the 2006 Games prompted a raid by Italian police on the Austrian athletes’ living quarters. Authorities seized large amounts of doping products and equipment, while Mayer fled the scene and crashed his car into a police roadblock across the Austrian border. (read the entire AP article at Ski Racing Magazine)