MEN Ted Ligety
U.S. ALPINE SKIER OF THE YEAR
For Ted Ligety, 2012 felt like an “off-year.” It
was, he said: “a bit of a let down, not winning the
GS globe, but at the same time, I scored the most
points I’ve scored in my career in GS. I had some
big wins and am back in the top 15 in slalom. I just
didn’t have the consistency to win [more] and that is
obviously a credit to Marcel Hirscher as well.”
In this “off-year” Ted Ligety got GS wins at
Soelden, Beaver Creek and Kranjska Gora — the
last by a season-record 1.61 seconds — and tallied
15 World Cup top- 10 finishes. He finished in the top
10 overall for the sixth time in the last seven sea-
sons. He finished second to Hirscher in GS and had
his best slalom results since 2008. He also led the
US men in slalom, in combined and in the Moscow
parallel event.
All of that is pretty good, but not as good as Ligety
expects, and he says he is eagerly waiting to see
what next season brings.
“I don’t think it is harder to defend a title or to claim
one,” says Ligety. “You [all] start off at zero. I won
by the biggest margins. Same as any year, I’m still
one of the favorites.”
The alpine game will reset more than usual for
next season as changes in ski dimensions click into
place. “It’s going to be interesting,” says Ligety, an
outspoken critic of the switch to competition skis
with less sidecut. “It’s going to take a lot of work
in the off-season for everybody. I know I can still be fast and
competitive on [the new skis]. The biggest thing is they are go-
ing to be a lot more physically taxing and more dangerous in
the sense that guys are going to be a lot more tired at the end
of their runs.”
To compensate, Ligety expects to spend even more time in
the gym building on his already legendary strength and fitness.
He will enter next season as a 28-year-old right in his prime
and will be a favorite for this award again. He previously won
in 2009 and 2011.
