Olympic combined champion Ted Ligety reports regularly from the World Cup tour in collaboration with Denver Post ski writer John Meyer.
Wengen, Switzerland – I’ve come a long way in speed events over the past year. I’m getting to the point where I can compete, and that’s encouraging.
I tied for 17th Sunday in the downhill portion of the super-combined at Wengen, Switzerland, and moved up seven spots in the slalom.
One area in which I have really improved is my technique in the air. At Chamonix, France, a couple of years ago, the coaches feared for my life every time I came down the course. The jumps there are huge, and I’d go off them and land on one foot, on the verge of killing myself on every jump.
Now I am perfectly solid in the air. I never feel out of my comfort zone.
The other thing I have had to learn is patience. A couple of years ago I was skiing slalom almost exclusively, and when you ski slalom you drop everything into the turn – hips, knees, everything. You do it super quickly, and you get out of the turn quickly.
That’s exactly what you don’t want to do in downhill and super-G. Training in those events teaches you to be patient coming into the turn, dragging the turn out and letting it run. I had to get comfortable doing that at higher speeds, being able to stay on the outside ski and letting it run instead of trying to make quick arcs.
I wouldn’t say I am a great glider right now. I do OK, but I’m not as heavy as most of the guys and I haven’t quite figured out the subtle touch you need when you’re gliding. There are little nuances in the speed events where I’m still a ways off, but in general I am getting my speed skills where they need to be to compete at a high level.
My ultimate goal within the next couple of years is to challenge for the World Cup overall title, and to do that you have to be very strong in the speed events. I’m at the point at which I can finish regularly in the top 20 in the speed events on a good day.
I am skipping this week’s races in Chamonix to train, but next week I will race the notorious Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbuehel, Austria, for the first time. After the way I raced downhill in Wengen, feeling comfortable in all the difficult sections, I feel I have the skills to make it down safely in Kitzbuehel. I am not going to be the fastest guy, but I think I can make it down without threatening my life too much.
