Bravo, Massimiliano: Italian wins GS

BEAVER CREEK - Score one for the giant slalom Dream Team.

In Saturday's Birds of Prey World Cup race, Italian GS specialist Massimiliano Blardone edged Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal by .04 seconds, and then wore the green, white and red flag to the top of the podium.

American Ted Ligety finished third, .07 seconds behind Blardone's time of 2 minutes, 27.88 seconds, for his first podium of the season.

Blardone, who picked up his third career win, was one of four Italians in the top 15.

"This year we have sort of a dream team, made out of four racers," Blardone said through an interpreter after the race. "Me, (Davide) Simoncelli, (Peter) Fill and (Giorgio) Rocca. We've worked together all summer and that for sure has brought up our level of training, and we can do better than we're doing at the moment."

Simoncelli took sixth, while Rocca was 13th in his first race back since hurting his knee earlier this season. Fill, who had the fourth-best time at the second interval of his first run, crashed a few gates before the finish and didn't qualify for a second run. Alessandro Roberto grabbed 18th, while three more Italians rounded out the list of racers to pick up points.

After a first run that put him in 11th place, Svindal posted the fastest second run to earn his second podium in three days and move into the overall lead. Thursday, Svindal won the super combined.

"I thought I could be a little faster, which is why I wasn't happy with my first run," Svindal said. "I knew I could ski well (on my second run)."

Svindal - who will be skiing all disciplines this year - has 221 points, 17 more than the next racer, Didier Cuche.

Cuche was fourth Saturday, narrowly missing his second podium in as many days. Didier Defago rounded out the top five.

Home stretch

On his second run, Ligety smacked his injured right hand on a gate, but used a late charge to pick up his second medal at Beaver Creek. In 2005, Ligety kick-started a breakout season with a third-place slalom at the Birds of Prey.

Ligety had some trouble in the flats on both runs, although he was pumped with a podium in the first GS race since switching to Rossignol skis.

"I'm glad I threw down a good race today - it shows it wasn't a bad move for sure," Ligety said of the switch. "I think I'm more consistent this year."

Phil McNichol, the U.S. men's coach, enjoyed seeing another one of his racers pulling in a top finish.

"This is awesome - it's what we needed," McNichol said. "Obviously his new gear is working from him."

After the first run, Ligety sat in fifth position, with teammate Bode Miller pulling in the top time. Miller also hit is hand on a gate in his second run, and finished 12th.

"Had (Bode) won, I wouldn't have been disappointed with fourth," Ligety said. "I mean fourth isn't nearly as good as third, but as along as we are getting a (win), it's OK."

Ligety broke his hand this fall training slalom in Austria, but he's still seen improvement in his GS skiing.

"Breaking my hand was OK for GS," Ligety said. "I trained a few days without poles and was right in there, beating most of the guys. It was good for my balance in that respect, but it hasn't been good for my slalom."

Ligety said the pain from hitting a gate Saturday wasn't as intense as when he broke it, and he planned on getting it checked out Saturday evening. While Ligety has seen vast improvement in his speed skiing, he plans on competing in the super combined races and testing the downhill waters.

"My downhill has improved, thanks in part to training in Chile," he said "If I'm able to score World Cup points in downhill, I'll race downhill, but if I'm finishing 40th, there's no purpose in wasting my time for that."

Globes

The top Italians plan on skiing all four disciplines this year, although some need to pick up a few points to qualify first.

"I couldn't race in downhill (at Lake Louise, Alberta), but Rocca would have raced there if he didn't hurt his knee, and Fill, we know he's racing in four disciplines," Blardone said.

Fill is third in the overall and took fourth in this week's super combined and downhill.

Even with his win, Blardone doesn't have enough points to race downhill, so he's heading to Lake Louise for a pair of NorAm downhills next week.

Saturday, Blardone skied nearly flawlessly except for a small slip on what he considers an easier GS hill.

"Because it's easy, it becomes difficult," Blardone said. "It's pretty easy in the flats, so it's easy for everybody, but if you make a mistake, it's practically impossible to make up time."

During the summer, the smaller Blardone put on about 10 pounds, which he considered a good amount for his frame.

Triple threat

On both of his GS runs, Ligety donned what is becoming his famous tape mustache.

"If you're going to put tape on your face, you might as well draw a mustache on it, right?," Ligety said after his first run.

During his downhill run of Thursday's super combined, Ligety debuted the mustache.

"The downhill run went really well and I was super psyched about that," Ligety said. "Then for the slalom run I took it off, because it wasn't that cold and I wasn't going as fast, and I sucked for that. Today it was pretty cold again and I decided to put some tape on my face and it worked out for both runs."

Ligety thinks it's important to keep things loose on the hill.

"When I start getting down on myself, it's definitely harder for me to come up with the results I want," Ligety said. "When I'm up in the start gate, I have a smile on my face and I'm kind of taking everything pretty lightly. I feel like I can perform a lot better and ski the way I want to instead of trying to force everything."

McNichol approves of Ligety's laid-back style.

"That kind of the American approach in general," McNichol said. "We have fun with what we are doing, and I think it's an important ingredient to this arduous sport that can be quite frankly a drag sometimes. You're .01 seconds between mediocrity and stardom, so you better crack a smile once in a while."



Sports Writer Ian Cropp can be reached at 748-2935 or icropp@vaildaily.com.



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