Avon, CO – In giant slalom, two men are in a league of their own: America’s Ted Ligety and Austria’s Marcel Hirscher. Their names appear at the top of 24 of the 28 last World Cup result lists. But today, local hero Ligety made a mistake in the first run and didn’t cross the finish line, one of three in the top seven (including Thomas Fanara and Alex Pinturault, both of France) to DNF.

Ligety, of Park City, Utah, was skiing aggressively in the first run, gunning for Hirscher and his sixth consecutive GS win in Beaver Creek when he was tripped up by soft snow in a right turn near the bottom. His skis slid out from him, leaving him unable to recover ahead of the next gate.

“The snow today was super, super aggressive, so it was kind of hard to adjust my skiing to that,” Ligety said. “I unfortunately made that mistake and just slid out. That’s part of ski racing.”

So the man to watch was definitely Hirscher, who ended up leading the first run. And in the end, he clocked the fastest total time of the day and earned his 33^th World Cup victory.

“I’m always skiing against the time, not against Ted (Ligety), or Felix (Neureuther, of Germany), or whoever else,” Hirscher asserted. “I’m always searching for the perfect turns, and maybe I can be faster than the best time or as close as possible to the best time. In general, I’m happy with my skiing so far and hopefully I can bring this momentum back to Europe.”

The trip to Colorado was definitively worth it for Hirscher, who also won Saturday’s super G, with the podium shared with Americans Ligety and Andrew Weibrecht.

“It’s always worth it to come to Beaver Creek, especially under these perfect conditions. But the expectations are definitively bigger than a few years ago, a lot of things changed, so we’re really happy that we could keep up,” Hirscher said. “Yesterday’s super G win was already a big step for me, and today’s giant slalom just crowned this weekend with success.”

In second place, Frenchman Victor Muffat-Jeandet claimed his first giant slalom World Cup podium result ever, +0.98 off the leader’s time.

“My first run showed me that I’m on the right way but then I had to bring in down in the second run. Last year I often had a good run and an average one, so I’m happy that I’m finally able to build a podium placement on two solid runs,” said Muffat-Jeandet. “I think this is a special step for me, but every single ski race is different and you need to be able to adapt. I’ll analyse my runs and try to use this for next week’s races in Val d’Isère.”

Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen rounded out the podium, 1.31 seconds behind Hirscher, and just one one-hundredth ahead of fourth-place finisher Andre Myhrer of Sweden.

“It was an exciting race, especially between Myhrer and me, we are only 0.01 apart, that’s tight! It’s not a hill that suits me very well, it’s pretty flat, so I’m very happy with my third place today,” admitted Kristoffersen. “I could have skied a little faster in the first run, I made some tactical mistakes going to high in the line, but the second run was pretty good.”

The World Cup is now moving to Europe, with the next stop featuring technical races at Val d’Isère, France, Dec. 12-13.

OFFICIAL RESULTS
FIS Alpine Ski World Cup
Birds of Prey – Beaver Creek, CO – Dec. 6, 2015
Men’s Giant Slalom