Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety overcame high winds yesterday to win a World Cup giant slalom event, after missing the first of Saturday's races at Yongpyong Ski Resort because he slept in.
"This surprised me more than the Olympics," he said immediately after clocking a combined two-run time of 2 minutes, 18.54 seconds. "I've been skiing pretty good GS lately but not like this."
Sweden's Fredrik Nyberg and Kalle Palander of Finland trailed by .03 seconds to finish joint second. This was Palander's fourth year at the Korean course. He qualified for his first slalom event here in 1998 at the age of 16.
Ligety, who won Olympic gold at Turin in the combined , had a terrible start to the weekend when he was the only nonstarter Saturday.
"I was pretty bummed yesterday, but today more than makes up for it because you never know," Ligety said. "If I skied yesterday who knows what I would have done today."
Sunday's races were delayed by more than four hours as high winds buffeted the Rainbow 1 course.
Austrian Benjamin Raich took fourth place and Italian Davide Simoncelli, Saturdays winner, was fifth.
The Americans suffered another setback when Erik Schlopy, who broke his hand at Beaver Creek at the start of the season, dropped out of Sunday's first race clutching his arm. A member of the American medical team said he had injured his thumb.
Schlopy's teammates only fared slightly better, with Daron Rahlves coming 13th. Bode Miller did not make the trip to Korea.
Olympic bronze medalist Hermann Maier was 24th, one slot worse than his performance Saturday, when he complained of feeling sick and said he had lost some of his drive following the Olympics.
Two solid jumps of 121.5m and 117m by Magnus Moan helped the Norwegian to victory at a World Cup event Saturday.
The 22-year-old Moan placed third in each jumping round and went out second on the cross-country ski track, with Finland's Anssi Koivuranta 37 seconds ahead.
Moan, an Olympic bronze medalist on the full course and a silver medalist in the sprint, controlled the 15K ski race and finished first in 42 minutes, 52.8 seconds -- 39.3 seconds ahead of Germany's Bjorn Kircheisen. Olympic sprint champion and full course silver medalist Felix Gottwald of Austria was a further 20.3 seconds behind.
Gottwald rose to the podium with the fastest ski race. He started 27th, 3:18 behind leader Koivuranta after mediocre, tentative jumping in tricky winds. Koivuranta, who had the best jump of 128.5 meters in the first round, was fourth. Switzerland's Andreas Hurschler, who was the second best skier at almost a minute behind Gottwald, went from 23rd to finish fifth.
With six events left, Manninen has already secured the World Cup Nordic combined title -- his third in a row.
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