U.S. Alpine Ski Team is 'loaded with talent'

World Championships medalists Julia Mancuso and Lindsey Kildow plus Utah skiers Ted Ligety, an Olympic medalist, and first-time World Cup winner Steven Nyman headline the 2008 U.S. Alpine Ski Team.

Noticeably missing from the list is Bode Miller, who left the team to ski as an independent.

Jesse Hunt, U.S. alpine director, said the group, from the A team through the developmental team, includes 27 men and 27 women; 15 are Olympians.

The team, now in full summer training mode, will kick off the 2007-08 World Cup season in October. The top U.S. ski team stars will be showcased in early December when the World Cup comes to Beaver Creek and Aspen.

Mancuso produced the finest U.S. women's World Cup season since 1984, winning her first four races while finishing third overall. She also collected another World Championships medal — the third of her career — a silver in the super combined during the 2007 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Are, Sweden.

She was also named U.S. Alpine Skier of the Year by Ski Racing magazine.

Kildow added three World Cup victories — she has seven in her career — and earned the silver medal in downhill and super G at Worlds before a knee injury shortened her 2007 season by a month.

Nyman earned his first World Cup top-3 finish during the December race at Beaver Creek, and two weeks later won his first race, capturing the downhill in Val Gardena, Italy.

Despite starting the season with a broken hand, Ligety had two more World Cup podiums and finished with two U.S. championships for the third straight season.

"This team is loaded with talent, from our top athletes that have had Olympic, World Championship and World Cup success to the up-and-coming athletes that have been successful at the Europa Cup and NorAm levels and are ready to take a step up," Hunt said. "This is a team — on both the men's and women's side — that has shown the potential to reach our goal of winning at every level."

The annual Visa Birds of Prey men's races will be Nov. 29-Dec. 2 (super combined, downhill, super G and giant slalom) at Beaver Creek, Colo., this year.

The Aspen Winternational Dec. 7-9 (downhill, super G and slalom) will have the first women's World Cup downhill in the United States since 1997 and mark the 40th anniversary of the first women's World Cup downhill in Aspen.