Olympic gold medalist and local Tahoe/Palisades Tahoe athlete Julia Mancuso took full advantage of home snow Thursday to win the Nature Valley U.S. Alpine Championships giant slalom for a record 16th U.S. title. Mancuso beat out the young ski racing phenom and World Cup slalom winner Mikaela Shiffrin by just .88 of a second.

From USSA News Release...

SQUAW VALLEY, CA (March 21) - Olympic gold medalist Julia Mancuso (Palisades Tahoe, CA) took full advantage of home snow to win the Nature Valley U.S. Alpine Championships giant slalom for a record 16th U.S. title. The Olympic gold medalist from Palisades Tahoe finished .88 in front of a red-hot Mikaela Shiffrin (Eagle-Vail, CO), 18, who had just locked the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup slalom title in Switzerland. The race opened the four-day culmination of the alpine ski racing year with over 500 young athletes from across the country converging at the 1960 Olympic mountain to hunt for U.S. titles.

The race was shortened from the planned start due to inconsistent snow after heavy snowfall on Wednesday that postponed the race until Thursday.

"I knew that it (the short course) was going to be hard and Mikaela is skiing really great GS through this year," said Mancuso. "So I just went for it".

A packed crowd was on site for the opening race under Palisades Tahoe's bluebird skies.

The Nature Valley U.S. Alpine Championships continue Friday with men's and women's super G as well as with a variety of celebrations and related events.

NBC will broadcast a Nature Valley U.S. Alpine Championships special program on March 24 at noon ET.