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Ligety makes it 4 in a row at Beaver Creek
BEAVER CREEK, USA – The last pre-World Championships race on the Birds of Prey could not have ended in a more spectacular manner with Ted Ligety earning his fifth Birds of Prey giant slalom victory, his fourth in a row, and making the numerous fans on the stands go wild. After skiing slightly conservatively in the first run Ligety was sitting in fourth place, but he spared nothing during his second and finished the race 0.18 ahead of second ranked Alexis Pinturault and 0.60 ahead of Marcel Hirscher.
“The first race of the season didn’t go as well as I wanted it to and I was a little bit frustrated but that’s how it goes in skiracing so it’s nice to be able to put it down today. Beaver Creek is always awesome and there is no race where the surface is as consistent as they make it here. It’s a lot of fun to ski here, there were good conditions top to bottom,” Ligety said.
It has been a rough few weeks for Ligety who after only finishing 10th in the Season Opening in Soelden he smashed his hand into a gate during a GS training run and had to undergo surgery. But Ligety is not one to be stopped by a few screws in his hand and days after surgery he continued to ski by using only one pole.
“I was skiing for a week without a pole because I couldn’t move my wrist much but now my hand feels fine, in a way that was good practice for my balance. I skied a lot without poles in the last years as a balance drill so it wasn’t such an issue, it might have helped my skiing a bit too. I don’t think about my hand while skiing, I just try to not drag my hand on the snow or hit gates with it, otherwise it’s not something I’m not so conscious about it,” Ligety explained the hand situation.
After finishing third in Saturday’s super-G and hurting his arm in the process by hooking it into a gate, Pinturault was able to ski past the pain and climb one step up on the podium.
“It turned out to be a good day but it was not easy at the beginning because I had to think about my arm as it was really painful this morning but I was able to stay focused on my skiing and ski as fast as possible and finishing second is really great for me,” Pinturault talked about his struggles on race day.
Hirscher was sitting in third after the first run and finished in the same place at the end of the race. The current leader of the GS standings is not as in tune as Ligety with the grippy American snow but is ready to do the take the challenge and improve his skiing on it.
“It was not easy today, it is super cool to be on the podium especially as both runs were pretty fast today which is not something I can usually ski really well and fast. I am more the kind of skier who likes if it’s icy and today was very ‘grippy’ very usual for American snow. I am now looking forward to being back for World Championships so I’m taking today as I great training for February,” Hirscher said.
In the first run 36-year-old Austrian veteran Benjamin Raich sat in the lead after skiing a flawless run on his brother’s course but after doing one too many mistakes in the second, Raich finished just off the podium in fourth, 0.87 seconds behind winner Ligety.
Despite thermometers showing numbers on the plus end of the scale conditions on course as good as one could ask for and racers are eager to be back in two months for the World Championships, especially Ligety who will be defending the three titles won in Schledming.
But before focus switches to Vail 2015, there is more racing to be done around the world and the next stop of the men’s tour is Are, Sweden for a night giant slalom next Friday and a slalom next Sunday.
“The first race of the season didn’t go as well as I wanted it to and I was a little bit frustrated but that’s how it goes in skiracing so it’s nice to be able to put it down today. Beaver Creek is always awesome and there is no race where the surface is as consistent as they make it here. It’s a lot of fun to ski here, there were good conditions top to bottom,” Ligety said.
It has been a rough few weeks for Ligety who after only finishing 10th in the Season Opening in Soelden he smashed his hand into a gate during a GS training run and had to undergo surgery. But Ligety is not one to be stopped by a few screws in his hand and days after surgery he continued to ski by using only one pole.
“I was skiing for a week without a pole because I couldn’t move my wrist much but now my hand feels fine, in a way that was good practice for my balance. I skied a lot without poles in the last years as a balance drill so it wasn’t such an issue, it might have helped my skiing a bit too. I don’t think about my hand while skiing, I just try to not drag my hand on the snow or hit gates with it, otherwise it’s not something I’m not so conscious about it,” Ligety explained the hand situation.
After finishing third in Saturday’s super-G and hurting his arm in the process by hooking it into a gate, Pinturault was able to ski past the pain and climb one step up on the podium.
“It turned out to be a good day but it was not easy at the beginning because I had to think about my arm as it was really painful this morning but I was able to stay focused on my skiing and ski as fast as possible and finishing second is really great for me,” Pinturault talked about his struggles on race day.
Hirscher was sitting in third after the first run and finished in the same place at the end of the race. The current leader of the GS standings is not as in tune as Ligety with the grippy American snow but is ready to do the take the challenge and improve his skiing on it.
“It was not easy today, it is super cool to be on the podium especially as both runs were pretty fast today which is not something I can usually ski really well and fast. I am more the kind of skier who likes if it’s icy and today was very ‘grippy’ very usual for American snow. I am now looking forward to being back for World Championships so I’m taking today as I great training for February,” Hirscher said.
In the first run 36-year-old Austrian veteran Benjamin Raich sat in the lead after skiing a flawless run on his brother’s course but after doing one too many mistakes in the second, Raich finished just off the podium in fourth, 0.87 seconds behind winner Ligety.
Despite thermometers showing numbers on the plus end of the scale conditions on course as good as one could ask for and racers are eager to be back in two months for the World Championships, especially Ligety who will be defending the three titles won in Schledming.
But before focus switches to Vail 2015, there is more racing to be done around the world and the next stop of the men’s tour is Are, Sweden for a night giant slalom next Friday and a slalom next Sunday.
Source: fis-ski.com
