bottle of Champagne and chasing the exhausted Ligety around the finish
area, liberally spraying him with the bubbly.
“Skiing needs these types of events,” Miller said, “both for the public and the
athletes.”
The format unfolds fast. The GS course is quick, taking about 36 seconds
to negotiate 25 gates set down a gully-like track at the Paganella ski area
in Andalo, Italy, jump the hood of an Audi and get ready to go again. It’s set
wide open and rhythmic. This year it ran fast, with, ironically, some of the
best snow seen in Europe to that point.
Five men advanced to the final: Ligety (the consensus-best in the world
in GS), Borsotti, defending champion Cyprien Richard, Austrian youngster
Marcel Mathias — who was a day shy of turning 20 and had been smoking
the field all day — and Czech veteran Ondrej Bank.
Richard went first, posting a time of 34.93, among
the fastest of the day.
Neither Mathias nor Bank
could match his time, but
Borsotti knocked nearly
two tenths off, setting the
stage for Ligety.
He was nervous and
said he tried not to look
at the clock with Borsotti’s time. He knew from
the response of the crowd that it was going to take a special run to collect
the paycheck. And then, “I stumbled a little out of the start.”
But Mr. Ligety hates to lose. He settled into the rhythm of the course and
began working to win back the time he had lost at the start.
He got back just enough, just barely enough, for the win and the Champagne bath from Miller.
“That was really amazing,” Ligety said. “I enjoyed it and I made the people
happy.” And his Putnam Investment bankers.
Later that evening, Ligety sent out a tweet: “Sorry to Giovanni Borsotti, good
skiing.”
The winner-take-all event in Andalo requires
nerves and error-free skiing.
Ligety got the last laugh with the
60,000-euro paycheck.
Bode Miller helps Ligety rehydrate in the
finish area.
