Randall, Mancuso Skiers Helping Japan

Fri, Apr  15, 2011 - By US Ski Team

PARK CITY, UT (April 15) - The U.S. Ski Team's Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley, CA) and Kikkan Randall (Anchorage) are using their success on the snow to give back and help others. In an effort to make a difference, Mancuso and Randall joined SkiersHelpingJapan.com, by donating part of their World Cup Finals prize money to help the many affected areas of the March earthquake and tsunami.

Mancuso set the stage, rallying momentum from the ski world to help support and aid in relief to Japan. With a goal of donating 100,000 Swiss Francs, Mancuso and fellow ski racers joined together to try to achieve this goal.

"I'm trying to pitch in and start giving something back from the ski world so I'm giving part of my prize money to help [Japan]," said Mancuso. "I think people are really interested and our goal is to donate 100,000 Swiss francs, that's an eighth of the prize money. There have been a lot of people reaching out so hopefully we can reach our goal."

Mancuso's incentives have proved inspiring, reaching the likes of fellow U.S. Ski Team athlete and World Cup cross country sprint powerhouse Randall. At World Cup Finals, Randall and fellow racer Petra Majdic collaborated on ways to help support Japan. With a little research, Randall and Majdic came across the website. Realizing Mancuso was involved, Randall reached out to see how the cross country skiers could lend a hand.

"We ended up emulating what they had done at the Alpine World Cup Finals. We had some of the top athletes write messages of encouragement to the people of Japan and then we posted the pictures on the website and several TV stations covered it," explained Randall. "We encouraged our athletes and industry partners to pledge donations to the people of Japan through the website."

Mancuso's and Randall's efforts proved a success having raised nearly half of the 100,000 Swiss Franc goal to date.

For more information or to donate and become part of the movement visit www.skiershelpingjapan.com.