Ted Ligety followed up his surprising super-G victory at the world championships in Schladming, Austria last week with another world title Monday, taking gold in the combined with a time of 2:56.96 to hold off Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic by 1.15 seconds.
Ligety, 28, was in sixth after the downhill leg of the event, 0.72 seconds behind Romed Baumann of Austria, but Ligety used his knowledge of a familiar slalom course to his advantage and earned his second world title of the week.
“It’s really a testament to my downhill this morning. It was awesome,” Ligety said. “I knew I didn’t have to push super hard in the slalom.”
Ligety is the first man to win two titles at the same world championships since 2013 downhill world champ Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway won both the downhill and giant slalom in 2007, and the first American to pull off the feat since Bode Miller did it with victories in downhill and super-G back in 2005.
Oh, and Ligety still has the giant slalom left this Friday, the discipline where he’s won four of the five World Cup races this season, three of the last five world cup championships, and the 2011 world title.
