Julia Mancuso
When I travel, I always have about 40 pairs of skis with me, plus a ski technician and a ski coach.
The truth is, the sport of skiing takes so much effort, setting up and traveling with equipment, that you can only train for a certain number of days in the summer. Most of my peers ski between 40 to 60 days. I ski about 55 days.
The best part about Maui is that I can spend a lot of time outside. My off-season is April, May, and June.
I come to Maui and go surfing, standup paddling, slacklining, swimming, and free-diving.
My best event is Super-G. I'm competitive in all my events, but Super-G has been most consistent for me.
Downhillers are going over 110 miles per hour. But no matter what, you can't hit the fence at 100 miles per hour.
I work out a lot, but I like to do action sports. A lot of surfing, mountain-biking.
I'm excited to watch slope style and halfpipe. And then, of course, when my events are done, I get to go to hockey, which is always entertaining. I also like figure skating. I think every girl grew up watching figure skating.
What has helped me prevent injuries is being connected and having my body aligned. Every morning, I roll out and then work on my core and my balance.
I do Nike Training Club, which is actually really hard and intense. I'm surprised every time I do it. I also use Map My Ride and Map My Run.
I find music distracting - it takes me out of my head. What I love so much about skiing is the peacefulness.
I don't really believe in lucky things, but I wear lucky underwear as a joke.
For me, personally, getting a podium is not as important as feeling super comfortable on my skiing.
I ski fast for me, first and foremost, and I ski fast for my family, and it's always the love that gets me to the podium.
It's cool when people ask me about my gold medal and they say it will last forever. I will try to promote skiing and show everyone it's not just about competition. It's about having fun with your friends in the snow. I want to bring people with less opportunities to the snow, try to use my gold medal to support programs to bring more people to the snow.Collection: Fun
The moment I think about past letdowns or future hypotheticals, I mentally put myself on shaky ground. If I clear my mind of chatter, I can succeed, just like I did in 2006.Collection: Past
To me the Olympic spirit embodies the magic of competition, hard work and coming to a point in your career when you're around the best athletes in the world, and having the whole world watching.Collection: Athlete
I really think positive and hope that everything works out. Because you can't really change anything.Collection: Thinking
We're really friendly. The cool thing about skiing is you're competing against the clock. Even though you're competing against your teammates, it's not head-to-head. And we can all do better. You can always do better. You never really have a perfect run. And someone beats you. So you can't really blame anyone.Collection: Running
I knew I really had to put down a good run. I played it safe, and took risks when I could, and I came in the fastest, I guess.Collection: Running
I think of how most people only get three weeks of vacation a year. And that, for me, seems like it would be really hard. My life feels like a vacation.Collection: Thinking
Our sport is really European, so you get to show off what you do to your friends and family and they can actually follow along.Collection: Sports
For me, it really just feels calm. When you're going fast on a downhill course, it's typically where it's wide open. I think it's kind of like driving a car. If you're going really fast and it's straight, everything seems to slow down. In general, racing downhill involves bigger turns and everything sort of slows down and you have a lot of time to think.Collection: Thinking