Ted Ligety won't back down as he waits for chance to race
NEW YORK — Two-time Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety knew his comments were going to be controversial.
After skiing race officials canceled the season-opening World Cup giant slalom in Soelden, Austria, on Sunday because of a storm forecast, Ligety took to Twitter to raise his objections.
“Seems odd to have a race cancelled at 645am in Austria when their biggest star is temporarily out,” Ligety wrote Sunday on Twitter. He was referring to Austrian star Marcel Hirscher, a six-time overall World Cup champion, who is out until December because of a broken left ankle.
Ligety wasn’t walking it back Tuesday afternoon. “I knew it would be controversial,” he said of his comments. “I was aware of that, but I also think it was controversial and it wasn’t being recognized as what it was.”
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Normally the process for calling off a race would involve coaches and the race jury doing an inspection of the course and the conditions that day. “They make the decision if it’s safe or if it’s good to go," Ligety said. "Often they’ll be like, maybe or maybe not, but we’ll have the racers go inspect it anyway and the racers can have a viewpoint on it.
“Almost never do they say the night before that we’re calling for a cancellation,” he added. “And in the morning at 6:45 we’ll call if we’ll have a race or not. It's normally we’re going to race. It’s not we’re probably going to cancel the race tomorrow.”
After several good days of training in Austria, Ligety is putting the disappointment of not racing behind him. He's looking ahead to a World Cup super-G at Lake Louise, Alberta, on Nov. 26 and the opening giant slalom at Beaver Creek, Colo., the following week.
Ligety, who has won the World Cup season title in giant slalom five times, is returning from back surgery in January. The 33-year-old says he’s healthy again and wants to get as many GS starts as possible before the Olympics begin Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang.
“When you’ve been injured for two years in a row pretty much, you’re really chomping at the bit to get out there and do it,” Ligety said.
He’s in town to mark the 100-day countdown until the Pyeongchang opening ceremony. Ligety is one of 10 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes who will be partnering with Smucker’s brands, the company announced Wednesday. Figure skaters Gracie Gold, Maia and Alex Shibutani and Meryl Davis are also included in the program, among others. Smucker's and Jif will donate $100,000 to the U.S. Olympic Committee to support future athletes.
Family time
For the first World Cup trip of the season, Ligety had his wife Mia and their son Jax, who was born in late June, with him in Austria.
Having family make the trip was important to Ligety. And it hasn’t been tough to manage because Jax is an easy baby, his dad reports.
“It’s cool to be able to come off the hill and go hang out with them,” Ligety says. “It’s a good release from the concentration of training. To be able to see his quirks and changes; everything changes every single day this age. It’s tough to miss those moments.”
Bode’s new gig
Bode Miller will work for NBC as an analyst in Pyeongchang, the first time in two decades he won’t be competing at a Winter Games.
Ligety points out that Miller worked as a broadcast commentator at last season’s world championships and has proven it’s a good fit.
“I think he’ll be able to give a good inside scoop,” Ligety said. “He’ll know most of the competitors out there. He will have raced the giant slalom and slalom courses there a bunch when he was racing, not the speed tracks. He just has good general knowledge and is still friendly with a bunch of the guys still racing.”