Mancuso’s 6th place the best of any U.S. woman in GS

By USSA

COURCHEVEL, France — Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley) and Mikaela Shiffrin (Vail) combined for top 10 finishes in an Audi FIS Alpine World Cup giant slalom in Courchevel on Dec. 16.

Mancuso was sixth and Shiffrin ninth as Tina Maze of Slovenia continued her dominance, winning her fourth straight GS.

“It’s a step in the right direction for my GS. I was happy to come down second and end up sixth,” Mancuso said. “It’s a pretty tricky course — really turny first run and more difficult than the second run. They had to inject because it snowed meters the week before in order to make sure we had a race they put in a lot of water and it wasa really rough. After scraping off the snow there was glare ice, but I thought it turned out pretty well. It was a good decision.”

The finish matched Shiffrin’s career best ninth set last month at the Aspen Winternational.

Mancuso moved to fifth in the Audi FIS World Cup overall, one spot behind Lindsey Vonn (Vail), who went out in the first run.

Maze leads the World Cup 799-468 over Germany’s Maria Hoefl-Riesch.