Ligety Wins USOC Award Again

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO (Jan. 10) – On the heels of two blistering Audi FIS Alpine World Cup giant slalom wins in December, Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) has been named the U.S. Olympic Committee's Athlete of the Month for the second time in 2012. After locking the award for October with a historic 2.75 second win of the season opening giant slalom, Ligety doubled down with staggering 1.76 second victory in front of a roaring U.S. crowd at the Audi Birds of Prey giant slalom in Beaver Creek on Dec. 2. He then backed it up with a third place World Cup finish on the notoriously steep Face de Bellevarde in Val d'Isere, France on Dec. 9 followed by another enormous 2.09 second win on the "Holy Grail" of giant slalom in Alta Badia, Italy on Dec. 16 for the 14th win of his career.

The Alta Badia win will be featured Jan. 13 at 3:30 ET on NBC during U.S. Ski Team 36, an exclusive trip into the co-pilot seat with the Olympic gold medalist and World Champion during the critical hours prior to the storied giant slalom in Alta Badia.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) was named the U.S. Olympic Committee's Athlete of the Month for December. He also secured the award in October.
• Snowboardcross athletes Seth Wescott (Sugarloaf, ME) and Nate Holland (Squaw Valley, CA) joined Ligety with the USOC's Team of the Month honor for a Dec. victory at the USANA Snowboardcross Cup in Telluride, CO. 
• During the month, Ligety scored 260 Audi FIS Alpine World Cup giant slalom points with two victories and a third. The victories combined for a massive 3.85 second margin over his competitors.
• He entered January leading the World Cup giant slalom standings and third in the overall chase and will race a giant slalom and slalom Jan. 12-13 in Adelboden, Switzerland.
• A voting panel selected Ligety from a pool of nominees submitted by National Governing Bodies across the spectrum of summer and winter Olympic sports with online fan voting via Twitter accounting for a percentage of the total vote.
• Ligety will be featured on NBC Jan. 13 at 3:30 p.m. ET in U.S. Ski Team 36, an exclusive look at the critical hours leading up to his victory Dec. 16 victory in Alta Badia, Italy.

QUOTES
Ted Ligety
It's a huge honor to win this award once, especially when you're nominated alongside the best U.S. athletes across all Olympic sports – I never would have expected it to happen twice in the same year.
December was a pretty unbelievable month, but now I have to keep focused.

Adelboden is a classic on the World Cup and it's also an incredibly cool hill. They've been hosting this race since 1955 so it's one of the cool ones to win. Hopefully I can try to win it for the first time on Saturday.

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