Are, Sweden – Julia Mancuso’s hopes of world championship gold are over for now. Her next goal is becoming the first American woman to win the overall World Cup title in 24 years.
After leading the opening leg of the giant slalom Tuesday, the Olympic champion managed only a fifth-place finish under the floodlights. She plans to return home and skip Friday’s slalom, saying the world championships have been “just too much for my body.”
Anja Paerson’s remarkable three-race winning streak ended when she fell on the second run of the race won by Nicole Hosp. Paerson, who swept the first three races at these world championships with victories in the super-G, downhill and combined, was the two-time defending champion in giant slalom.
Paerson, a Swede, was seventh on the first run Tuesday.
“Of course I’m very disappointed,” she said. “I tried to push myself to go fast and go for the gold and not hold back anywhere. You only have a world championships at home once, and you can’t go home feeling you didn’t give it your all.”
Hosp, who was fourth after the opening leg, won with a combined time of 2 minutes, 31.72 seconds to give Austria its first gold medal at the championships after two silver and three bronze medals. Hosp won one of those bronze medals, in Sunday’s downhill.
“I dreamt of this gold medal (Monday) night,” said Hosp, who leads the World Cup giant slalom standings. “After I came down and was leading, I watched the other girls come down, but I wasn’t nervous, because my time was so good. I knew for Julia and the others it was going to be very, very difficult to equal this time.”
Maria Pietilae-Holmner of Sweden captured the silver medal in 2:32.57. Italy’s Denise Karbon took the bronze in 2:32.69.
“I heard there were some bad jokes going around, that the Austrians cannot make a gold medal,” Hosp said. “And now it’s time for the gold medal for Austria.”
Mancuso was the final skier down on the second leg and started with an advantage of 0.25 on Hosp. But Mancuso was 0.41 behind by the first split and ended up 1.24 back. Now she’s going home to rest up for the end of the World Cup season in hopes of becoming the first American woman to win the overall World Cup title since Tamara McKinney in 1983.
