CRANS MONTANA, Switzerland (Feb. 26) - Fighting through incredibly soft snow conditions, Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) was slowed to ninth place in the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup giant slalom at Crans Montana won by Italian Massimiliano Blardone. As the course deteriorated under warm temperatures, the first run leaders struggled to maintain speed in the final run. After leading the giant slalom standings for the first half of the season, Ligety is now 132 points behind Austrian Marcel Hirscher with two giant slalom races left in the season. Hirscher, who was second in the race, also leads the World Cup overall standings by 92 points.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) was slowed to ninth in the Crans Montana giant slalom
- Warm temperatures made for slow and sticky snow conditions in the second run
- Italian Massimiliano Blardone won with Austrian Marcel Hirscher in second
- Hirscher leads the giant slalom standings by 132 points over Ligety with two races remaining
- Hirscher also leads the overall standings by 92 points over injured Ivica Kostelic of Croatia
- Tommy Ford (Bend, OR) was 19th and Tim Jitloff (Reno, NV) 22nd
- The men's World Cup tour moves to Kvitfjell, Norway for a pair of super G races and a downhill
QUOTES
Sasha Rearick, Head Coach
Both Tommy [Ford] and Ted [Ligety] made a big tactical mistake on the bottom. It didn’t cost Ted as much as I thought it did.
Ted is going to skip Kvitfjell, take a couple of days break to rest from these crazy last few weeks, then he's going to train slalom and giant slalom the week prior to Kranjska Gora. He is not skiing with the tremendous cleanliness and crispness that we know he can ski with. Over the rolls here, he just wasn't skiing with a lot of confidence.
I am stoked with the skiing of Tommy Ford. Today he went out and free skied a lot and found some better movement for his skis, but on the bottom he skied a too-aggressive line and it was just too costly for both him and Tim [Jitloff], which is a bummer. Qualifying for World Cup Finals for Tommy and Tim is going to come down to the last race. There's about seven guys between 21 and 29 that could make top 25.
TV
Universal Sports will air the race at 2 p.m. ET
RESULTS
Official Results
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