Ted Ligety

Theodore Sharp Ligety (born August 31, 1984) is a retired American alpine ski racer, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and an entrepreneur, having cofounded Shred Optics.

Ligety also became just the fourth American male skier to win Olympic gold, along with Moe, Phil Mahre (slalom, 1984) and Bill Johnson (downhill, 1984).

At Turin, Ligety also participated in the giant slalom and the slalom, but he failed to complete either event.

Following his Olympic victory in the combined, Ligety recorded his first World Cup victory, a win in the giant slalom in Yongpyeong, South Korea.

He finished ninth in the overall World Cup standings for the year, marking the first time that three American men had placed in the top 10 (along with Bode Miller in third and Daron Rahlves in fourth), despite the fact that he did not compete in downhill or super-G that year.

At age 21, he became the first American man to win an Olympic gold medal in alpine skiing in a dozen years, since Tommy Moe won the downhill at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

He attended The Winter Sports School and graduated in 2002.

Ligety was named to the U.S. Skiing Development Team and won a silver medal in slalom in the Junior World Championships in 2004.

He made his first start in a World Cup event during the 2004 World Cup season in the giant slalom at Park City.

In the summer of 2004, Ligety and U.S. Ski Team head coach Sasha Rearick studied Fu Style Tai Chi.

The next winter in the 2005 season, Ligety was added to the U.S. Ski Team full-time, during which he had four top-15 finishes in slalom, placing 24th overall in the discipline.

Ligety recorded his first World Cup podium finish in the first slalom of the season, at Beaver Creek in December, and followed that up with a second and a third during the next three slaloms.

- It was a little surprise that Ted Ligety's first win was in a giant slalom because he wasn't known as a good giant slalom racer (he had only placed in the top ten in one race before, being 8th at Sölden on October 23, 2005 - and he had bib-number 18, a number which is behind the top fifteen of the world; at that time he was far better in the slalom by finishing 3rd at Beaver Creek on December, 4th, and also at Kranjska Gora in December 2005, and indeed finishing second at Adelboden on January 8).

Ligety won the combined event at the 2006 Olympics in Turin and the giant slalom race at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.

Ligety's first major victory of his professional career came at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, held at Sestriere.

Ligety won the gold medal in the men's combined event, a major upset after the two racers favored to win the event failed to finish the slalom portion.

In the summer of 2006, Ligety changed his ski supplier from Völkl to Rossignol.

With Rahlves' retirement, Ligety began to compete in all five events.

However, he managed only two podium finishes during the season, a second in slalom and a third in giant slalom.

Disappointingly, he had three fourth-place finishes, one in giant slalom, one in super combined, and one in the World Cup finals downhill, as well as a fourth-place finish in the giant slalom at the 2007 World Championships in Åre, Sweden, missing a medal by 0.07 seconds.

He finished eleventh overall in 2007.

He is also a five-time World Cup champion in giant slalom (2008, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014).

- It took long until he could achieve a second win (Kranjska Gora on March 8, 2008).

Ligety won his first World Cup season title in the giant slalom in 2008, and finished fifth in the overall standings.

He won the final two giant slaloms of the year at Kranjska Gora and Bormio to edge out two-time defending champion Benjamin Raich of Austria for the season title.

He also recorded four other podium finishes: a second and a third in giant slalom and two third places in slalom.

In addition to his title, Ligety ranked seventh in combined and ninth in slalom.

When the last giant slalom race was started on March 14, Ligety was ahead to Raich with a margin of 27 points, but in that actual race he was only seventh-placed after the first leg while Raich was second-placed.

But Ligety did do a phenomenal best time in the second leg, becoming first ahead to Raich.

Ligety opened defense of his 2008 giant slalom title with a third-place finish in Sölden, Austria, and then placed second at Beaver Creek, Colorado.

At the 2009 World Championships in Val d'Isère, France, Ligety took the bronze medal in the giant slalom, then won his fourth World Cup race at Kranjska Gora.

He finished the season with another second at the finals in Åre, Sweden, which left him ranked third in GS and ninth overall for the season.

Ligety won the gold medal in the giant slalom at the 2011 World Championships.

He successfully defended his world title in giant slalom in 2013 in Schladming, Austria, where he also won an unexpected gold medal in the super-G and a third gold medal in the super combined.

Ligety planned to participate in the 2021 World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo but withdrew due to an injury, which prompted his retirement from ski racing in early February, 2021.

He finished his career with 25 victories (24 in giant slalom and 1 super combined) and 52 podiums in World Cup competition.

His Olympic giant slalom gold medal, 24 GS World Cup wins, 3 GS world championship gold medals and 5 World Cup titles put him among the three greatest giant slalom skiers of all time, according to Ski-DB.

Ligety was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of Cyndi Sharp and Bill Ligety, who are real estate agents.

He grew up in Park City and began skiing at two and racing at ten.

On that March 5, he was only 8th-placed after the first leg (with a deficite of 1.13 sec. behind leading Davide Simoncelli but he was able to overtake all elite racers in the second leg).