Manuela Moelgg shares a Website with her older brother, Manfred, and both share similar passions and perspectives when it comes to winter - building their identities as skiers in Italy's Dolomite mountains. If 26-year-old Manuela is anything, it's determined, and she has shown that in her World Cup racing, going from never finishing a race when she started on the circuit back in 2000-01 to multiple podium finishes and ranked among the top five giant slalom skiers in the world.

With a true love for her South Tyrolean mountains, the little blonde Italian became competitive on the race circuit as a teenager and earned her first points on the Europa Cup in late 2000. Though she has competed in all disciplines, it became quickly apparent that her true talents lied in the tight gates. In the 2001 season, Moelgg juggled both the European Cup and the World Cup and it took her a while to acquire consistency in either. She was either disqualified or did not finish her first 12 World Cup races. In spite of her sporadic results, she earned her first World Cup points in super G, finishing 30th in Aspen in 2002. A month later, she bumped up her speed a few notches, taking 11th in the Lenzerheide combined race and ninth in the Semmering slalom. Her only other scoring result that season was a 12th in the Bormio GS, although she went on to take seventh in the world championship GS in St. Moritz. Her finishes in 2003-04 were hit or miss, but 2004-05 turned a new leaf for the Rossignol athlete. She earned her first podium - a second place in the Aspen slalom - in 2004, then took eighth in the GS at Semmering, which she notes as her favorite course on the circuit. It wasn't until 2006-07 that Moelgg began to show some real consistency in her speed. She kicked off the 2007 season competing in all disciplines, but found herself among the top 15 only in GS and slalom. Here she appeared regularly, wrapping up with a top result of fourth in the Lenzerheide GS. In 2007-08, she put her World Cup focus solely on the technical disciplines, and rocketed onto the podium again - in giant slaloms at Panorama, B.C. and in Maribor before missing a victory by mere tenths of a second in the GS in Bormio at the end of the season. She wrapped up 2008 in a career-best third place in the GS standings.

Last season was a continuation of Moelgg's newly discovered technical prowess. Though her speed led to a few crashes on the racecourse, Moelgg's worst finish was a 20th place in the Maribor slalom. She was only .02 seconds away from victory in the La Molina GS and less than a half a second away at the GS in Semmering. She wrapped up the season with a final podium in the GS at Are and propelled herself - on slalom and GS results alone - into 15th place in the overall standings.

Claiming to be simple, happy and determined, Moelgg's drive has brought her a long way. She is a dancer in her non-ski life, and also enjoys cooking and kicking back in front of the TV.