With World Cup GS title in sight, Ted Ligety eyes more success after 3 golds at ski worlds

KRANJSKA GORA, Slovenia - Three world championship gold medals have not quenched Ted Ligety's hunger for success this season.

The American is on the brink of securing his fourth World Cup giant slalom title and is poised to finish a career-best third in the overall standings.

Ligety will win the GS crystal globe on Saturday if he finishes ahead of his sole rival, Austria's Marcel Hirscher, at Kranjska Gora in the last race before next week's World Cup finals in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.

Ligety took the season-opener in October by a massive 2.75-second winning margin, setting the tone for a dominant GS campaign that saw him win three more races. He leads Hirscher, who beat the American for the GS title last year, by 105 points. Each win is worth 100 points.

"I am trying not to calculate too much," Ligety told The Associated Press. "One hundred and five points is a good margin but not a comfortable margin. That can be erased pretty quickly. I am in a good position. I like this hill. I am lucky we're in Kranjska Gora, not in Val d'Isere for instance."

Ligety has an impressive track record at Kranjska Gora with four victories and two thirds in the last six seasons. The shape of the Podkoren course and the snow conditions suit his style of skiing more than any other World Cup resort.

Regaining the GS title with a race to spare would enable Ligety to chase another goal in Lenzerheide next week.

"If I lock it up, it leaves me a little bit more room to have freedom at the finals," Ligety said. "I could do the downhill and focus on other events as well. The goal is to stay in the top three for the overall title. Felix (Neureuther) is pretty close to me and he is a very capable skier, too."

Ligety holds a slim 11-point lead over the fourth-place German. Ligety is more than 400 points behind leader Hirscher, who will battle it out for the overall title with Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal in the remaining six races.

Finishing third would add to Ligety's gold rush at last month's world championships, and underline the 28-year-old's improving allround capabilities.

"That's another step forward in the right direction," said Ligety, whose previous best was fifth in 2008. "If a couple of things go better for me next year, I could be much more in it. I need to score 600-plus points in giant slalom, 200-plus points in super-G, and 3 or 400 points in slalom."

The world titles in GS, super-combined and super-G earned Ligety the nickname "King of Schladming," though not much else has really changed since — to his relief.

"That was really a dream come true but I am still the same guy," Ligety said. "My goal isn't to walk the red carpet and all that kind of stuff, my goal is to ski and to have fun at that ... I don't really care to be a celebrity. It's not always that much fun being that kind of person. I am happy to be where I am right now."

Ligety is eager to take the next step after concluding his most successful season so far. He aims to become a serious contender for the overall title in a year that will be highlighted by the Sochi Winter Olympics.

His hat trick at the worlds ensures Ligety will spearhead the U.S. team for the Olympics.

"That's a cool thing to be part of," said Ligety, who trained on the Olympic hill in Sochi last week. "The big stories are going to be Bode (Miller) and Lindsey (Vonn) coming back, and Mikaela (Shiffrin) as well. In a way I needed to have that kind of world championships to be on the radar."

His preseason preparations won't change much just because of the Olympics. Ligety is planning to get more slalom training in order to gain consistency in that discipline.

The main focus will be on the World Cup. If he does well there, he will have the best preparation for Sochi, he said.

"It's so hard to calculate peaking in ski racing because it's not just a physical thing like you have in running or swimming," Ligety said. "The best way to have the most confidence and be in the right place technically is to be winning races."