Simoncelli Upsets Ligety at Rockfest

ANDALO, Italy (Dec. 20) - Audi FIS Alpine World Cup giant slalom leader Ted Ligety (Park Ctiy, UT) was upset by Italian Davide Simoncelli in the winner-take-all 70,000 Euro Alpine Rockfest exibition event Thursday. Ligety posted the fastest times in the first and second rounds before crashing out in the final. The stunning spectator event was held on a shortened giant slalom course, featured a jump over an Audi and an elite group of the top men's World Cup athletes. The format consisted of 16 top men's alpine athletes racing through three sucessive rounds of sprint giant slalom with six athletes being eliminated in the opeing round and five in the second. Ligety now returns to the U.S. for a short break before rejoining the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup tour for a city parallel slalom on New Years Day in Munich, Germany.

QUOTES
Ted Ligety
It's a bummer that I had to catch one edge. I caught my inside edge and it just flipped me around.

It's the kind of thing when the course is this short and you make one mistake it's all over. That's how it goes sometimes and its cool that someone else won. but I'm really glad that I didn't do this in a World Cup.\

Rockfest is a really cool event. All the racers are up there at the start hanging out together. You are not with your national teams and coaches and it's a really fun atmosphere.

Davide Simoncelli
Ted's first run was amazing, his second run was amazing, amazing, amazing and then in the third run he makes that mistake, maybe the first one all year. It was lucky for me. I guess I was in the right place today. Ligety is the GS master.

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