Julia Manhard

Julia Manhard
nation	Germany
birthday	August 28, 1987
place of birth	Feet
Career
discipline	Ski cross
society	SC Pfronten
National squad	since 2005
status	resigned
End of career	2010
Medal table
JWM medals 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Freestyle Skiing Junior World Championships gold Krasnoe Ozero 2006 Ski cross
Placements in the Freestyle Skiing World Cup
Debut in the World Cup January 7, 2005  Overall World Cup 20th ( 2005/06 )  Ski cross world cup 8. ( 2005/06 , 2006/07 )
last change: February 6, 2010

Julia Manhard (born August 28, 1987 in Füssen ) is a German freestyle skier who starts in ski cross .

Manhard started the Freestyle Skiing World Cup at the age of 17 and achieved consistently good results. In March 2007, she celebrated her first international and so far greatest success by winning the Junior World Championship. This was followed by knee problems and a tear in the meniscus, because of which she was unable to compete in the World Cup for two winters - between 2007 and 2009. In the 2009/10 season she returned with two top ten results in the World Cup and thus qualified for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Career

Beginnings in the World Cup and Junior World Champion (2004 to 2006)

In her first World Cup season, the winter of 2004/05 , Manhard started in three competitions and reached the top twenty ranks each time. A year later, in January 2006, she placed in the top ten for the first time when she was seventh at the World Cup in Kreischberg . Shortly afterwards, the then 18-year-old reached fourth place in qualifying for the next World Cup, leaving the reigning world champion Karin Huttary from Austria behind, among others . In the competition, she finally placed ninth. Although, according to her own statement, she had expected to qualify for the final of the top four, she was overall pleased with the successful start to the season and stated that her goal was further consistent results. Two victories in the national Saab Salomon Crossmax series was followed by the greatest success in Manhard's career to date: at the 2006 Junior World Championship in Krasnoe Ozero , Russia , she won the first gold medal awarded in ski cross. The Pfrontner benefited from her triumph in the qualification. This gave her the tactical advantage of being able to freely choose the start gate in all runs up to the finals and thus to choose the best position. In the final, Manhard only overtook the French Méryll Boulangeat, who had been in the lead for a long time, shortly before the end, and finally won with a narrow margin of 20 centimeters. At the last World Cup of the season in the Sierra Nevada , the German placed in the top ten two more times.

Establishment among the best in the world and relapse through injuries (2006 to 2009)

In November 2006, ski cross was officially recognized as an Olympic discipline, the first competitions will take place in 2010 at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver . As a result, according to Manhard's observations, interest in this sport increased, and the discipline was professionalized into competitive sport. Before the winter, the woman from Füssen received an invitation to the Winter X Games 2007, which she was particularly proud of, as something like this was unthinkable for her two years earlier. Her goals now are to build on the previous season and reach a World Cup final for the first time. In the winter of 2006/07 Manhard started with a seventh place in Flaine , where she was eliminated in the semifinals as the best German against the future winner from Sweden, Magdalena Iljans . Seventh place also gave the German the right to start the adult world championship two months later. Before the next World Cup, the X-Games in Aspen were scheduled for the end of January . After a handicap in the semi-finals, she ultimately finished ninth in the victory of French Ophélie David . In the last races of the season in the World Cup, Manhard made it into the top ten every time, but missed a final. As the most consistent German athlete, she was eighth in the overall ski cross World Cup and, at the age of 19, took part in an adult world championship for the first time in March . In difficult conditions, however, she was eliminated in the qualification there, while her teammate Alexandra Grauvogl secured the bronze medal. Shortly afterwards, the woman from Füssen lost her title to another French woman , Alizée Boulangeat, in sixth place at the Junior World Championships after a fall in the semi-finals . After he was unable to defend his title, Manhard was disappointed and declared: "I actually wanted to win the title again."

Before the 2007/08 season , Manhard was optimistic that they would move into a final for the first time. She also assumed that the battle for the overall World Cup would be more exciting due to the expanded World Cup calendar. However, she sustained a knee injury and was out for the entire season, making her comeback in the pre-Olympic winter of 2008/09 . At the European Cup in Grasgehren , she came on the podium and was only beaten by two teammates. After that, she had another bad luck with injuries, suffered a tear in the meniscus and was again out for the rest of the season, the cause being believed to be a weakened cruciate ligament. This meant that she was only able to contest one competition on an international level within two and a half years. Heli Herdt , the sports director in the area of ​​ski cross, explained that, despite this setback, Manhard was “highly motivated to prepare for the 2009/2010 season as quickly as possible”.

Qualification for the Olympics and withdrawal from competitive sports (2009 to 2010)

The 2009/10 Olympic season began at the end of December 2009 with the World Cup in San Candido, Italy . After her injury, Manhard came back into the top ten and reached ninth place. For the Olympic qualification, the freestyle skis had to meet the general standard of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), i.e. either once among the top eight or twice among the top fifteen. With ninth place at the start of the season, the woman from Füssen had already fulfilled the first part of the norm, another top 15 result was missing. She achieved this in mid-January 2010 when she reached another ninth place and thus qualified as the fourth German freestyle skier for the Olympics. She reached 25th place in Vancouver and ended her active career as a competitive athlete in 2012.

Private

At the beginning of her career, Julia Manhard was still a student before she passed her Abitur in summer 2007 and began studying biomedicine at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg . This situation has already been presented as an example for other athletes who do not practice their sport full-time, but study at the same time. Manhard herself, who says she had about 30 days off in the winter as a student, describes this as “not exactly stress-free”, but she has always been skiing and does not want to stop. As a professional goal, she is planning a master's degree in biomedicine and possibly a doctoral thesis.

Julia Manhard's sister Christina , who is three years younger than her, is also part of the German national freestyle skiing team. Twelfth place is currently her best result in the World Cup.

Web links

• Julia Manhard in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Julia Manhard and Andi Schauer are junior world champions
2. ↑ ^{a b} Interview with Julia Manhard
3. ↑ Julia Manhard - German Skicross Hope qualified for X-Games ( Memento from March 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ ^{a b} Top placements at Ski-Freestyle Skicross Junior World Championships ( Memento from May 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Interview with Julia Manhard
6. ↑ DSV line-up for the World Cup kick-off in St. Johann
7. ^ The Allgäu Online from June 11, 2010
8. ↑ Commuting between the slopes and the laboratory ( Memento from February 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive )