Mancuso set for Cortina farewell

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy: Four-time Olympic medallist Julia Mancuso has announced she will retire from alpine skiing after a farewell run in the women’s World Cup downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Friday.

The 33-year-old American has battled a degenerative hip problem and failed to qualify for a fifth Winter Olympics in South Korea next month.“Sadly, I haven’t found the progression to compete with the best in the world again, but I’m proud to have fought until the very end. It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to ski racing, but I do so with a full heart,” Mancuso said in a statement. Mancuso — winner of giant slalom gold at the 2006 Turin Games — is the most decorated US women’s Olympic skier. She also won silver in the downhill and combined in Vancouver in 2010 and bronze in the combined in Sochi four years ago. She is tied with Lindsey Vonn for most global championship medals won by a US woman with nine and has also stood on the World Cup podium 36 times, with seven wins, and started in 398 World Cup races. Mancuso will retire at the venue of her first World Cup podium — a second place in the Super-G in Cortina in 2006.