VAIL, Colo. — Olympic champion Julia Mancuso is scheduled to undergo hip surgery Wednesday at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, which will sideline her for the entire FIS Ski World Cup 2015-16 season.

Mancuso, of Squaw Valley, said she has been trying other ways to rehab her ailing hip, but nothing was working quickly enough to enable her to compete at the Olympic level she has come to from herself.

She decided to move forward with hip surgery, and start training for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

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“If I were to try to push through, get more treatments and try to ski this season, I would just be setting myself back toward the real goal, which is PyeongChang 2018,” Mancuso said. “My goal is to be strong enough to freeski at the end of March, but conservatively, it depends on the outcome of the surgery.”

Kyle Wilkens, U.S. Ski Team medical director, said Mancuso has “smart approach” to her hip surgery.

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“We used this year’s prep season to exhaust all conservative treatment,” Wilkins said. “Unfortunately, those efforts were not successful and she has elected to go forth with surgery.”

Mancuso burst into the international alpine spotlight as a teenager.

She has captured more major championship medals than any other American woman (nine — four Olympic and five World Championship).

As a four-event athlete from the beginning the beginning of her career, Mancuso started World Cup racing and was a NorAm champion at 16.

She competed in the Olympics at 17, set a U.S. record for Junior World Championships medals before she was out of her teens, and then started her twenties by capturing two World Championships medals.

Mancuso was part of the first-ever podium sweep by American women to open the 2014-15 World Cup season. In that Lake Louise downhill, Lindsey Vonn won gold, Stacey Cook won silver and Mancuso won bronze.

Randy Wyrick is a reporter for the Vail Daily, the Sierra Sun’s sister newspaper in Vail, Colo.