Mancuso top U.S. woman in super G at 10th

BY USSA

LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland -– Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley) skied into the top 10 Thursday at the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup super G final, leading the U.S. women during the final speed event of the 2014 season.

All three U.S. women finished in the points during the sunny super G finale, with Stacey Cook (Mammoth Mountain) finishing 11 and Leanne Smith (North Conway, N.H.) 14 behind race winner and World Cup super G champion Lara Gut of Switzerland. The race is set to air on Universal Sports at 1:00 p.m. EST.

Thursday concluded the best-ever super G season for Cook, who tied with Mancuso for 15 in the super G standings. Smith finished 19 in super G for the season.

Lara Gut of Switzerland took the victory and secured the World Cup super G title, while Austrian Anna Fenninger locked the overall title with her second place finish. Slovenian superstar Tina Maze took third.

The blue skies and warm temperatures were ideal for racing Thursday, but the challenging course and bumpy snow got the best of four of the discipline’s top 20 athletes.

A nations team event is scheduled for Friday, when Bode Miller (Franconia, N.H.), Tim Jitloff (Reno), David Chodounsky (Crested Butte, Colo.), Mikaela Shiffrin (Eagle-Vail) and Mancuso will race in a bracket-style parallel giant slalom.

The women will return to the hill again on Saturday for the final World Cup slalom race of the season.