MY LAST NIGHT IN MAUI, Julia's father, Ciro Mancuso, is holding court over lamb and Chianti at the beachfront home he shares with his second wife, Katie, and their four-year-old daughter, Taly. "I could've died out there!" exclaims the 59-year-old developer, who has graying hair but a thirty-something physique. He's telling dinner guests about his hairy paddleboarding experience a few days ago on his daughter's board. "I was by myself, without a leash, hit by a swell and fell off," he continues. "And 40-knot winds blew the board away. So I let it go and swam two hours to shore." (They found the board a few days later.)

It's clear where Mancuso got her passion for sports and risk, but her dad is also one reason Mancuso may never be totally happy about the way she's portrayed in the American media. In 1989, Ciro was showering inside his family's 6,000-square-foot Lake Tahoe home when a team of FBI agents stormed in and arrested him. He was the brains behind one of the largest marijuana cartels in U.S. history, which had smuggled some 45 tons of pot (worth roughly $98 million) into the country. His sentence, after he agreed to testify against his former lawyer, was four years in a federal prison in South Dakota. "He went to jail when I was in kindergarten," Julia says. "When I'd see him, it was behind plate glass. His going to prison was one of the reasons I grasped on to skiing." And after she won her medal, it stole the headlines.

But for tonight, at least, that all feels like history. "You know, Ciro," I say as he refills my glass, "Julia told me that paddleboarding story a little differently. She said, 'Dad almost lost my new board!' "

Julia chuckles and says, "It's OK to laugh, since he's still here." Then she sits back and throws her arm around her father. For the first time since I arrived, Julia is at rest. And I feel safe.