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" NAME: Julia Mancuso AGE: 22 HOMETOWN: Squaw Valley, CA  CLAIM TO FAME: She won a gold medal in the 2006 Winter Olympics in the giant slalom event. HOW SHE GOT STARTED: &amp;quot;My big sister April used to ski race and I&amp;#039;d follow after her. It was my way to be included.&amp;quot; WHY SHE LOVES IT: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m really attached to nature. I think it&amp;#039;s cool that you can be riding on the chairlift with your friend, and then you get off and you&amp;#039;re surrounded by nature. It&amp;#039;s like you have this one moment where that&amp;#039;s all that really matters, and time kind of stands still ... you&amp;#039;re literally in the now.&amp;quot; WHAT COMPETING IS LIKE: &amp;quot;Skiing is really about me and the snow, not me and my competitors. As a professional athlete, I&amp;#039;m racing against the clock for the fastest time. What&amp;#039;s crazy is that my sport isn&amp;#039;t about perfection. Sometimes I&amp;#039;ll have a run where I&amp;#039;m falling all over and I think I&amp;#039;m making mistakes\u2014but really, I&amp;#039;m going fast and I end up winning!&amp;quot; HER WORKOUT: &amp;quot;I ski every day, and I do 45 minutes of spinning five days a week\u2014during the Olympics, it was even more intense . Spinning loosens my leg muscles , plus it helps brush all the tension away. I&amp;#039;ve also been doing Qigong. It&amp;#039;s a Chinese yoga-like practice that coordinates breathing with different poses. I act like I&amp;#039;m holding an actual ball of energy and I shake it. It makes my body all warm, and the breathing soothes my mind.&amp;quot; HIDDEN TALENT: &amp;quot;I paint abstracts with bright colors and things from nature. I cut out inspiring quotes, glue them onto the canvas, and fill the painting around them. One of my favorite phrases is, &amp;#039;Choose your mood, change your mind.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Visit usskiteam.com to find out how to watch Julia compete in the U.S. Alpine Championships in Alaska this March! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/advice/a8388/queen-mountain-bs-mar07/>