America's Ted Ligety added another major trophy to his collection Friday as he captured the second FIS World Cup giant slalom title of his career with a solid third place in the season's final event. This later triumph places Ligety in some pretty illustrious company as he joins Phil Mahre to become the second American man to earn two World Cup giant slalom titles. Bode Miller also took that title once back in 2004.
"Having two globes is awesome," Ligety said. "It's cool to have those and to be the best in giant slalom over the last couple of years."
Ligety's discipline title is his second in three years, having won it already in 2008. The 2006 combined Olympic champion had a solid first run and, after falling slightly behind at the third interval, he picked up the pace in the second run to tie for third in the race with Austrian Philipp Schoerghofer.
"It's always better to tie someone than be one hundredth behind, so I was happy to be on the podium," Ligety joked. He knows what he is talking about! Two years ago he lost a giant slalom at Beaver Creek by only one hundredth to Austria's ski legend Benjamin Raich after having clearly dominated the first run.
With a somewhat narrow 43 point-lead on the giant slalom standings going into Friday's race, Ligety said things fell into place on game day for him to beat his toughest challengers for the title. "I knew I had to have a good first run and I was pretty lucky in the sense that Massimiliano Blardone had a big screw up and then Marcel Hirscher got disqualified," Ligety said. "That opened it up for me and I skied decently in the second run." Hirscher was DQed by the start referee because he opened the starting gate a few hundredths too early. At the end of the race, Ted clinched the title with a nice lead of 71 points.
While those advantages locked Ligety in the title run before his second run, the 2006 Olympic champ had no idea he had already won the globe when the time came for him to race. "I didn't actually know that I had won the title no matter what at that point," he explained. "I would have gone harder had I known that, but I had a safe second run and was still pretty excited to get on the podium again."
With that new crystal globe, Ligety added the 2010 discipline title to the first he won in 2008. He also capped the year with three consecutive World Cup podiums in giant slalom to bookend a season that began with a second place finish in Soelden, in Austria, last October. Despite his success in GS, Ligety was looking for more with his slalom, but has one more chance in slalom Saturday to end on a high note.
"I don't feel like the year has been great otherwise, so it's definitely nice to walk away with the discipline globe," Ligety said. "It's cool to be able to ski at this level for multiple years." Ligety noted that he hopes to compete on the same level again at the 2011 World Championships taking place on the same hill.
"The hill is actually pretty good. It's difficult on the top and then the bottom has a super long flat," he said. "It's a confidence booster to do well on the same hill you know you're going to have World Championships on."
Besides his strong results in giant slalom, Ted also reached an impressive 2nd place in super G in December at Val d'Isère, France. For the third consecutive year, he will end the season among the top-10s in the overall World Cup standings. He is now 7th prior the last slalom. Two years ago he finished fifth.
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