Sestriere, Italy – When Bode Miller was dodging the fallout from his “60 Minutes” bombshell last month, the willful American anti-hero addressed a question about teammate Ted Ligety in a manner that suggested a hint of envy.
“The first Olympics was better than the second for me,” said Miller, who won two silver medals at Salt Lake in 2002 after failing to finish two events at Nagano in 1998. “I was super-psyched, it was my first year on the World Cup, it was in Japan, it was really foreign, it was really awe-inspiring, I was digging deep into my self-esteem and my motivation to do something amazing. There was no story, there was no pressure.
“That’s Olympic. That’s the fun stuff. If you go in there as the favorite to win five medals, it doesn’t allow you to experience the Olympics the way they’re supposed to be experienced.”
And Ligety?
“In his case, this is the perfect chance,” Miller said. “He’s young, he’s got a ton of enthusiasm, a ton of excitement, he’s surprising himself doing stuff, and he’s already seen a significant amount of success. That’s the way you’d like to lay something out if you could.”
Ligety, 21, will be a central character in the final alpine drama of the Turin Games, Saturday’s men’s slalom, which many see as a mano a mano showdown between the wide-eyed Utahn and the pride of Italy, Giorgio Rocca.
The atmosphere promises to be electric, recalling the uproarious heyday of Alberto Tomba, the flamboyant Italian playboy who dominated skiing in the late 1980s and early 1990s with his athletic brilliance and showmanship. Rocca is no Tomba, but he won five straight World Cup slaloms this season, making him one of the early favorites in the Olympics.
Now he’s worried about the American – Ligety, not Miller.
Ligety won a gold medal in the Olympic combined Feb. 14 with two sensational slalom runs that smoked Rocca by nearly a second and a half. It was an overpowering performance for a racer in his second season on the World Cup.
Rocca and his coaches have been studying video of Ligety’s runs here to see how he is capable of generating so much speed. It is a role reversal no one could have predicted two months ago.
“After the others study me, now I must study the others, especially the best at the moment, which is Ted,” Rocca told Pierangelo Molinaro, a reporter for Italy’s national sports newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport.
The prologue to Saturday’s showdown came in the first World Cup slalom of the season, Dec. 4 at Beaver Creek. Variable course conditions, blowing snow and poor visibility made it a race of attrition: 31 of 74 competitors were disqualified or failed to finish the first run, eight of 31 went down and out in the second run. When the carnage ended, the Austrians were complaining about the fairness of the race, Rocca was the winner and Ligety was third for the first podium of his career.
Rocca went on to take the next four slaloms, joining Tomba, Ingemar Stenmark and Marc Girardelli as the only men in World Cup history to win five straight in one season. Rocca facetiously gave credit to his son, Giacomo, born Nov. 21.
“He is 50 days old,” Rocca said after winning No. 5 in Wengen, Switzerland, on Jan. 15. “He is a lucky baby. I win everything in slalom since he is born. Seriously, winning five brings me more confidence than pressure. I think I have found the key to not making mistakes.”
If so, he lost it. Rocca failed to finish the remaining two slaloms before the Olympics.
The Beaver Creek race paid Ligety dividends beyond the confidence that comes with achieving a career-best result. It put him in the first seed (top 15), meaning he would have better start positions, making him a legitimate player. Ligety hit the podium twice since Beaver Creek and has been in the top six of every slalom except one.
“I’m the kind of guy who takes a lot different line than most people, so skiing a clean course is huge for me,” Ligety said a week before the Olympics in Chamonix, France. “(Beaver Creek) definitely helped me to the results I’ve been having. When I start late, I’m T-boning ruts. It definitely slows you down or tosses you out of the course. It’s a lot better for me to be on a clean course.”
Miller saw Ligety as a medal contender more than a month ago.
“He’s shown he has as much or more speed than anyone else in the world,” Miller said. “His lack of experience in some ways plays to his advantage.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
“I think I’m faster than (Rocca) in open sections, but he’s definitely a lot better tactically than I am, and he’s more solid than I am,” Ligety said. “That’s what makes it a hard race between the two of us. I’m constantly making mistakes, whereas he skis solid from section to section to section, really links up the course well.”
Rocca, 30, made his World Cup debut inauspiciously in January 1996, suffering a knee injury that knocked him off the tour until the following January. His first full season on the tour (1997-98) was Tomba’s last.
The Italians have little in common besides an affinity for slalom.
Tomba was a man of the city (Bologna) and the discotheque, a man who loved wine and women. “I used to have a wild time with three women until 5 a.m., but I am getting older,” Tomba said at the 1992 Olympics. “In the Olympic Village here, I will live it up with five women, but only until 3 a.m.”
Rocca is from Livigno, a small, isolated town in the mountains near the Swiss border.
“He is a man for a family, he is not a man for a discotheque,” Molinaro said. “Tomba is a man of the town, he is a man who likes the people. Rocca likes people, but he is not comfortable around many people. With the trees, the sky, the snow, the silence is the true Rocca. With thousands of people waiting, it is difficult for him.”
Several thousands will watch him duel Ligety in a fitting climax for the alpine events. How will the young American handle it?
“I’m never one to really think about the crowd too much,” Ligety said. “You deal with it when you’re at the bottom. I don’t think you’ll be hearing any boos. For sure it will be a sweet atmosphere. The Olympics is a big event, and I’m psyched to be part of it. It will be cool for sure.”
Tale of the tape
The veteran Giorgio Rocca sets his sights on the upstart American:
GIORGIO ROCCA
Hometown: Livigno, Italy
Age: 30
World Cup debut: Jan. 6, 1996
World Cup podiums: 20 (11 wins)
First victory: Jan. 19, 2003
Olympic experience: 26th in giant slalom (2002), fifth in combined (2006)
World championship medals: Three bronze (slalom in 2003, slalom and combined in 2005)
Personal: Married with a 3-month-old son; member of the
Carabinieri, the Italian paramilitary police
TED LIGETY
Hometown: Park City, Utah
Age: 21
World Cup debut: Nov. 22, 2003
World Cup podiums: Three (all this season)
Best finish: Second in Adelboden, Switzerland (Jan. 8)
Olympic experience: Won the combined Feb. 14; failed to finish the giant slalom Feb. 20.
World championship experience: Finished 12th in the combined and failed to finish the slalom in 2005
Personal: Served as a forerunner on his home slope at the 2002 Olympics
