among ski racers she summers in hawaii not in a training glacier as many others do paddling a surfboard near a beach is her hobby of choice not pedaling a gyms stationary bike over the years mancuso has also occasionally been hampered by problems with her equipment but once they have been solved her best performances usually follow this winter mancuso switched to a new boot model made by her equipment manufacturer head she spent most of the early part of the season questioning that decision and switched back to her old boots before finally committing to the newly designed boot modelsticking with it has helped she said ive started building things back up and it has been coming along latelyin three of her last four races she has cracked the top 10 each of them either a downhill or a superg racesochis location on the black sea may also be an advantage for mancuso the snow conditions could be comparable to those experienced at the whistler ski resort which hosted the alpine competition during the 2010 vancouver games mancuso has had a long run of success at whistler going back to her days as a topranked adolescenti think the snow could be kind of dry and wintry at the top of the racecourse and more wet and softer at the bottom mancuso said it could be very similar to whistlerif sochi is the last olympics for mancuso americas most decorated female olympic ski racer she is not ready to admit to iti go through times when i may think ill be done soon she said and other times i see no reason to stop some things are left to be decided i guess