ALPINE:

Ligety sizzles to Birds of Prey GS win, Roy 17th

Dec. 5, 2010     ♦ Photo: American Ted Ligety (Michel Painchaud)

BEAVER CREEK, Colorado — American Ted Ligety salvaged the weekend for the U.S. Ski Team on home snow, winning the World Cup men's giant slalom on the Birds of Prey course Sunday.



The first-run leader, Ligety held serve in the second run, finishing with a two-run time of 2 minutes, 37.67 seconds. That was .82 better than runner-up Kjetil Jansrud of Norway, with Austrian Marcel Hirscher finshing third.

Romed Baumann of Austria, Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and Cyprien Richard of France were next.

Jean-Philippe Roy was 17th to score points for the Canadians. The U.S. had three other top-30 finishers, with Tim Jitloff 23rd, Warner Nickerson 24th and Bode Miller 27th.

In the first run, Robbie Dixon, eighth in Saturday's super-G to lead the Canadians, was 33rd, just missing the cut. Francois Bourque also missed the cut, while Dustin Cook and Erik Guay skied out.

So close in the past, Ligety won for the first time at Beaver Creek with two nearly flawless runs, including a hard-charging final descent.

"I didn't want to hold back," said Ligety, who's been no worse than fourth in the giant slalom at Beaver Creek since 2006. "I was just thinking I'd rather blow out having the lead than come down and feel like I choked. I was going hard and I was lucky to make it without any mistakes."

Jansrud figured he had his first World Cup win after a fast final run, only to be foiled by his good friend. "I was like, 'Yeah, this is going to be tough for Ted,' " Jansrud said. "I skied good on the top, felt like I was pushing it."

But this was Ligety's time as he captured a World Cup race on the same afternoon that Lindsey Vonn cruised to a super-G win at Lake Louise, Alberta. This was definitely a banner day for the Americans on the hill.

"It's really cool," Ligety said of the achievement. "It's nice to have my name next to hers when she's winning."

Canadian Roy was 22nd in the first run.

"I still have a little bit of the knee problem,” Roy said. “I'm going to need a lot of ice right now. But I think it was a good day. I skied very well in my second run, I pushed it. I think it may have been my 10 years of experience that helped me.

"I don't ski a lot, but when I do, I know what to do. When the speed is faster I make a little bit more mistakes. But I think it's good to build on and I think it's a good result today. Now I head to Val d'Isère and Val Gardena and hopefully get some more good results in before Christmas."

For Miller, the problem centered more on his skis. He was slow on the first run and switched over to a different Head model to tackle the grippy snow. The change didn't help as Miller finished 8.68 seconds behind Ligety.

On his second run, Miller hit a patch of soft snow that knocked him off track and nearly brought him to a full stop. He moved back onto the course and continued racing. It was a forgettable World Cup stop for Miller, who swerved off the course in the super-G on Saturday.

"Always disappointing when you tank out of races," Miller said. "But on this hill, it's been a trend for me. If I can make it down without big mistakes, I win. If not, I don't. So, there's not a whole lot of margin between, because it's pretty unforgiving."

Swiss skier Daniel Albrecht returned to racing and wound up in 21st place. Albrecht had a horrific crash nearly two years ago during a downhill training run at Kitzbühel, Austria, that left him in a medically induced coma with brain and lung injuries.

The crowd gave Albrecht a rousing ovation after both of his runs.

"It was such a hard road to come back," Albrecht said. "It took a lot of time. I was hoping to do everything well again. That was the satisfying thing, to be able to come back to where I was."

Just his presence back on the mountain impressed Ligety, let alone his ability to be a factor in this race.

"That's phenomenal," Ligety said. "That's really a credit to him and what a good skier he is now, and how really good he was before."

Benjamin Raich of Austria skipped the race with a bothersome back, while one of the favourites, Jean-Baptiste Grange of France, missed a gate on the first run and was done for the day. Defending champ Carlo Janka of Switzerland skied out in the final run and didn't finish.

The men's team is on its way to Val d'Isère for a giant slalom race next Saturday and a slalom race on Sunday.   S-Magazine 



— The U.S. Ski Team, Alpine Canada and The Canadian Press contributed to this report

Beaver Creek World Cup men's GS results