Silver medalist Mancuso to auction gear for charity

Olympic champion and three-time World Championships medalist Julia Mancuso hopes the online bidding heats up Saturday when she begins auctioning two helmets and some of her race bibs, including gear from the World Championships and Olympics races, to help combat global warming.
ARE, Sweden — Olympic champion and three-time World Championships medalist Julia Mancuso hopes the online bidding heats up Saturday when she begins auctioning two helmets and some of her race bibs, including gear from the World Championships and Olympics races, to help combat global warming.
    She has explained in recent weeks that her concern for global warming, which scientists say is caused by humans, is accentuated because of the impact on ski areas and glaciers, many of which host a variety of not just alpine ski races — Mancuso’s sport — but all level of snowsport activities.
    “I thought about having an auction and just raising money and awareness through my bibs and really trying to keep all the bibs from my races instead of just giving them away because we have so many” races, she said. “And I think just small amounts of money can change the world.
    “I’m going to start there and hopefully the auction can raise more awareness to the World Wildlife Federation’s climate and global warming [program] as well as Right to Play. I hope to get more involved and use this alley-way to raise more awareness,” Mancuso said at the 2007 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, where she was silver medalist in the inaugural super combined event.
    The first batch of autographed bibs and the headgear auction begins Saturday at https://juliamancuso.net/index.htm and will last for seven days. As one-of-a-kind items, they’re expected to go quickly. The awareness campaign is called Helping Hands Changing the World Together.
    Mancuso, 22, who earned two bronze medals at the 2005 worlds and a silver in Are, has joined with fellow Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety in endorsing the WWF’s climate change program and she selected Right to Play, which brings sports to underdeveloped nations, after former Olympic aerials champion Nikki Stone spoke at the University of Utah, where Mancuso’s sister, April, is a student.
    The helmets being auctioned, she said, include the race helmet she was wearing when Mancuso won her first World Cup Dec. 19 in Val d’Isere, France, and one which she’s worn when not training or racing this winter.
    The first group of bibs includes bibs from Mancuso’s breakthrough 2006 season in which she not only won the Olympic giant slalom title but also produced the first top-three finishes of her career. This season, she’s won three World Cup races and generated a U.S.-record five consecutive podium results; she is third in the World Cup overall standings heading into the final month of the season.
    “We made a fixed price to see how it goes,” she said. “I'’m going to auction off the ones where I was on the podium with and the ones I use at special races like World Championships …
    “We’re going to auction the World Championships bib at the end of the season. I think that will be a really good time for another auction,” she said. “I’m hoping to get my sponsors involved too and do a lot more of these in the future.”

WHO WANTS TO SKI WITH JULIA? Check out www.ripitenergy.com to "rip it to win" a ski trip with Julia Mancuso or a snowboard trip with recent Aspen Open and world junior champ Clair Bidez.