SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM – First main championship. First occasion. First medal.
Lauren Macuga actually didn’t waste any time making an influence on the Alpine snowboarding world championships.
The 22-year-old American earned bronze in super-G on Thursday and rapidly celebrated with somewhat dance within the end space, rocking her arms up and down earlier than bowing to the Austrian crowd.
Dancing celebrations have turn out to be a factor in snowboarding this season since Lucas Pinheiro Braathen carried out a snow samba to have fun Brazil’s first podium in December.
“Properly, I couldn’t pull that off. I don’t have his dancing abilities. However I do like bizarre dance strikes,” Macuga mentioned. “I hoped to be on the rostrum immediately, however I wasn’t anticipating it. So I used to be like, ‘OK, I acquired to do one thing right here.’”
Identified for her colourful bucket hats and American-flag patterned pants and shirts, the outgoing Macuga — pronounced Mah-SUE-guh — is rapidly turning into a fan favourite.
“It’s so necessary to indicate the enjoyable facet of snowboarding,” she mentioned. “I do know when to activate the enjoyable and type of dial it again to be extra critical.”
Macuga was the quickest skier on the highest part of the Ulli Maier course, flying practically 30 yards (27 meters) off a soar 30 seconds into her run and clocking 76 mph (122 kph) earlier than holding on to tie for third with Kajsa Vickhoff Lie of Norway, 0.24 seconds behind race winner Stephanie Venier of Austria.
“I felt like I used to be going quick. I got here off that soar, I used to be like, ‘I’m flying, my gosh, you higher hold shifting,’” Macuga mentioned.
It was simply the beginning of an enormous day within the Macuga household, the place all 4 siblings — three sisters and a brother — are completed skiers on U.S. groups.
Alli Macuga was competing in a moguls competitions later again residence in Utah; Sam Macuga was ski leaping in Lake Placid, New York; and Daniel was in the course of a Nor-Am Alpine snowboarding competitors in Kimberley, British Columbia.
Amy and Dan, the Macugas’ dad and mom, had been doing their finest to maintain tabs on everybody.
Amy was cheering on Lauren in Austria whereas Dan was with Alli in Deer Valley.
“We’re type of in all places proper now,” Lauren mentioned. “Have to separate up. Divide and conquer.”
All the siblings hope to be in the identical nation a 12 months from now and competing on the Milan-Cortina Olympics. Thursday marked precisely one 12 months earlier than the Feb. 6, 2026, opening ceremony.
Nonetheless in the course of her breakout season, Lauren doesn’t have a sponsor on her helmet like many of the prime skiers do. As a substitute, she’s been racing with a query mark printed on her headgear.
“I’m attempting to get a sponsor that desires a loopy individual that loves bucket hats,” she mentioned.
The playfulness on the ski circuit brings to thoughts the best way Julia Mancuso, one other American nice who received Olympic gold and a number of world championship medals, used to have fun by placing on a tiara.
Lauren received a super-G in St. Anton, Austria, final month for her first World Cup victory and now she’s executed one thing that not even Lindsey Vonn or Mikaela Shiffrin did: win a medal of their first race at their first main championship.
Vonn’s debut on the greatest competitors outdoors of the Olympics got here in 2005 when she completed ninth within the super-G, earlier than occurring to assert two fourth-place finishes that 12 months. Shiffrin completed sixth within the big slalom in her debut in 2013 after which went on to win gold in slalom two days later on the age of 17.
Vonn was available to have fun Macuga’s achievement in a race the place the 40-year-old American nice acquired hooked on a gate early in her run.
“She’s a extremely free-spirited individual and he or she’s acquired her personal fashion — and I find it irresistible,” Vonn mentioned. “She’s very genuine to herself and he or she believes in herself and he or she works actually, actually arduous. So she deserves it. And he or she’s simply a tremendous expertise. … That is only the start for her.
“All of her siblings are insane athletes,” Vonn added. “One thing should run within the household.”
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AP snowboarding: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing
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