Ligety Victorious in Wengen Super Combined
WENGEN, Switzerland (Jan. 17) - Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) captured the 20th Audi FIS Alpine World Cup victory of his career Friday with a stunning super combined victory in Wengen. Ligety is the 2006 Olympic gold medalist in combined and the reigning World Champion in super combined, but until today had not won a World Cup race in any dicipline other than giant slalom. To make the historic victory even more memorable, the race was run in a reverse format with the slalom portion being staged before the downhill. The race, which opened the 84th Lauberhorn races in Wengen, will re broadcast at 9 p.m. ET on Universal Sports Network.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) won the 20th Audi FIS Alpine World Cup of his career with a super combined victory in Wengen.
- It was the first World Cup win for Ligety in a discipline other than giant slalom.
- He is the 2006 Olympic gold medalist in combined, which paired one run of downhill and two runs of slalom and he is the 2013 World Champion in super combined.
- It was Ligety's third World Cup win of the season and bumped him back into third in the overall World Cup standings.
- Another super combined will be staged next Friday in Kitzbuehel, Austria to open the Hahnenkamm weekend.
- Overnight snow forced the jury to flip the race format with the slalom portion being staged before the downhill.
- Ligety, who ran bib one, was second after the slalom, 1.22 seconds behind Alexis Pinturault of France and finished 13th in the downhill to overtake Pinturault for the win.
- Bode Miller (Franconia, NH) finished ninth and Jared Goldberg (Holladay, UT) 20th, for the first World Cup points of his young career.
- Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) was 28th and Ryan Cochran-Siegle (Starksboro, VT) returned to the World Cup for the first time since last February, but he went out in slalom.
- The race opened the 84th Lauberhorn weekend in Wengen featuring a downhill Saturday and slalom on Sunday.
QUOTES
Ted Ligety
It’s nice to win a super combined finally. I’ve only done so in big events, which is a nice thing to do, but it would have been good to win a World Cup before now. To get this win is a nice confidence booster and feels really good because January has been a rough month for me. It’s nice that I can turn the corner on that one.
There was a lot of snowfall, but they groomed the track so it was not the greatest snow on the downhill, but I feel lucky that we had good light. In downhill if I don't feel confident enough to go hard so I let myself go slow so I could see where I was going.
The main goal for Sochi is definitely the giant slalom. It’s my best event and I feel like I have the best chance of winning. But I know I have good chances, especially after Schladming, of competing well in combined and super G as well. So those are obviously my focuses. I think it’s going to be difficult to do what I did in Schladming, but I still think that I can get medals in those other events. So, I’m looking forward to that challenge.
RESULTS
Official Results
