Solden specialist Ligety wins curtain-raiser

American Ted Ligety survived a slip to win Sunday's giant slalom, his fourth victory in Solden at the men's alpine skiing World Cup season curtain-raiser.

This was Ligety's 25th World Cup win and his 19th in the giant slalom, which has seen him win the crystal globe in this discipline four times.

The current Olympic and three-time reigning world champion set up this fresh triumph when topping the times easily in the first leg, ahead of local hero Austria's Marcel Hirscher and French journeyman Thomas Fanara.

"I've been training here for years," said Ligety, whose American team use Solden as their European base.

"I knew I was on form but you never know with the first race of the season, because you can't tell who your main rivals will be."

The American, 31, made a mistake half way down his second descent to give brief hope to Fanara, who was at that time top on the leaderboard, but the man who grew up on the 2002 Salt Lake City slopes recovered to win by 15 hundredths of a second.

Hirscher had to settle for third in the end on the Rettenbach glacier, which is the traditional host for early season action.

It has proved a happy hunting ground for Ligety, who was adding this feat to his previous Solden victories in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Ligety has never won the overall World Cup title, but is dreaming of a tilt this season.

"What I'm really dreaming about is the overall World Cup title," he said, adding that he'd been putting in extra training on super-G and slalom.

There is now a three-week gap leading up to two slaloms in the next leg of the World Cup at Levi Finland on November 14-15.

Source: AFP