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Posted on Friday February 26th at 11:11 a.m.
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Chris Knight, Women's Alpine Coach
Mancuso has overcome injury and poor form in the last year to claim two silver medals.
Knight is the technical head coach of the American women's ski team, and for the last year much of his time has been devoted to pulling Mancuso back from the brink of despair to make her a medal winner in Vancouver.
Knight, who has been a coach with the women's squad since 2002, has helped Mancuso regain her fitness and form when halfway through last year it seemed she would struggle to find a place on the women's squad.
Mancuso had surgery on a hip injury in 2008, but it failed to heal properly and led to two compressed discs in her back.
"The whole of the 2008-09 season was pretty much a patchwork year," said Knight from Vancouver this week.
"She lost all the feeling and confidence in her skiing and didn't get the time on the snow she needed. Halfway through the season the year was pretty much done. She didn't have the miles of training on the snow to get her through.
"But last year she got healthy and even though she was continuing with treatment she was able to get in a full preparation period."
The pair spent hours training at California's Mammoth Mountain, and earlier in the year at a team training camp at Coronet Peak.
Julia Mancuso waves her country's flag after she won the silver medal in the women's super combined in Vancouver
"She did a lot of skiing in October and November and was still tired from that huge period of training at the start of the (northern hemisphere) season." Knight said he then reduced Mancuso's training to have her performing at a peak in Vancouver.
Leading into the Olympics, Knight said her form was still below where he would have liked.
"A podium before the Olympics in a World Cup race would have been nice for her confidence, but it didn't happen. There were a series of small things that were just not clicking, but then in the first training run in the downhill here it all clicked and in the race it clicked as well." Mancuso claimed silver behind her team-mate, Lindsey Vonn. During the medal presentation Mancuso looked happier than Vonn, after triumphing over her setbacks.
Knight, 38, became interested in ski coaching while studying for a Bachelor of Science at Canterbury University.
After completing his degree he got a job with the Australian team looking after the athletes' skis. Within in a year he was an assistant coach and from there progressed to coaching the British women.
After the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City Knight joined the American team as an assistant coach to the Europa Cup squad. The next year he moved to the speed group with the women's World Cup squad and is now head coach of the women's technical team. In the meantime he has completed a Masters in Sports Science degree at the University of Queensland.
"They have a good web-based programme and I've been able to do that in my down time in the northern hemisphere."
Next month he hopes to make his first summer visit home in 13 years, but in the meantime there are three more days of business in Vancouver for the American women - the giant slalom this morning (NZ time) and the slalom on Saturday morning - and Knight is hoping for more medals, in particular gold from Mancuso this morning.
"Confidence is a wonderful thing and she has that now."
Source: The Press
Article: By KEVIN TUTTY