Road to Sochi: Lake Tahoe's Julia Mancuso13th in Zauchensee Downhill

Julia Mancuso of Squaw Valley finished 13th in the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup in Zauchensee, Austria, her best finish in this Olympic season. The race was won by Elisabeth Goergl of Austria who hadn't won a downhill race in two years.

"We’ve skied here a lot. It’s definitely nice, but especially right now with how I’m feeling on my equipment, I would like more training runs. But racing is racing and the snow was forgiving. It was soft. It wasn’t too gnarly anywhere. It was fun," said Mancuso after her finish. "I finally have some really good splits. I was one mistake away from being in the top ten and having a really good result, so it’s really positive. We have two more races that hopefully have good training runs that I can get feeling a lot better on my equipment and I’m definitely more positive. It was nice to go home and get a little time with my trainer and just kind of refocus and know that all the tools are there and it’s really now just about believing that I can ski well and go fast."

Three other Americans finished in the top 25: Stacey Cook (Mammoth Mountain, CA), Laurenne Ross (Bend, OR) and Leanne Smith (N. Conway, NH) also finished in the top 25 with 22, 23 and 25 respectively.

Heavy snow in the region had led to cancellations of other events, including Friday's training runs.

A complete list of finishers.