VAL D’ISERE, France — Ted Ligety is well on his way to a third World Cup giant slalom title, dominating his rivals Saturday for his second straight victory in this event.
Now he’s trying to carry his success to the slalom as well.
The American beat Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway by more than a second in the French Alps for his seventh career victory in his favorite event. But to achieve his goal of challenging for the overall World Cup title, Ligety knows he needs to vastly improve his slalom results this season — starting with today’s race.
“I’m definitely working hard to have my slalom back to where it was four years ago, or even a couple of years ago,” Ligety said.
He had six top-three finishes in the discipline between 2006 and 2008 but struggled the last two years. To break his slump, Ligety switched skis during the offseason and did a lot of testing with his new supplier.
“Slalom is so difficult, it’s so tight,” he said. “The equipment setup makes it a lot easier, so we’ll see. It’s not easy to be fast in slalom right now but I feel like step by step I’m getting closer to where I was.”
In giant slalom, he’s looking better than ever.
Coming off his GS win at Beaver Creek last weekend, Ligety had a flawless first leg on the Face de Bellevarde course and then pulled out a bold second run to win in the combined time of 2 minutes, 26.26 seconds.
Svindal was 1.05 seconds behind while Massimiliano Blardone of Italy was third, 1.21 back.
“I was very impressed by what Ted did today,” said Svindal, who leads the World Cup standings ahead of Ligety with 236 points, 15 more than his American rival.
“When you’re pulling out two clean runs like he did today, this is normal to have such big margins,” Svindal said. “He has been very clean, with no big mistakes. It’s hard to get those good results without making mistakes.”
Ligety, who won the GS crystal globe last season and in 2008, took bronze on the same course in 2009 at the world championships.
“It’s certainly nice to get two races in a row,” Ligety said. “It’s definitely pretty exciting to be able to do that in such difficult conditions. I’ve had a lot of podiums, but not a lot of wins. It’s a nice little confidence booster for the start of the season.”
Women’s called
ST. MORITZ, Switzerland — Strong winds forced race officials to call off a women’s World Cup super-G race.
After the start was delayed by one hour, just six racers were sent down a shortened course before organizers declared a halt to racing.
U.S. rules freestyle opener
RUKA, Finland — Americans Patrick Deneen and Hannah Kearney won the men’s and women’s moguls events at the World Cup freestyle skiing opener.
Deneen, the 2009 world champion, got 25.23 points to top the leaderboard after the first event of the season. Mikael Kingsbury of Canada was second with 24.89, ahead of Guilbaut Colas of France with 24.78.
Olympic champion Kearney scored 24.09 points in the women’s race to edge Jennifer Heil of Canada with 24.02. Kristi Richards of Canada was third with 23.52.
