Vonn, Ligety fired up for Soelden

SOELDEN, Austria (Oct. 20) - The U.S. Ski Team's Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) has a pretty good run going at the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup opener. The 2006 Olympic combined gold medalist has finished in the Soelden top 3 each of the last two seasons with 2008 propelling him to the World Cup giant slalom title and 2009 paving the way for a World Championships bronze medal.

"I'm skiing stronger at this point in the year than I ever have," said Ligety, who has completely recovered from a late March knee injury. "We skied a ton more GS at the Portillo speed camp this season and that was a big help. My knee feels great and I'm excited to get things going."

Joining Ligety in the gate at Soelden is Tim Jitloff (Reno, NV), who popped a career best World Cup result at Soelden last season then transformed that into a giant slalom fifth in Sestriere, Italy later in the season for a new personal best. Jake Zamansky (Aspen, CO) also had a banner year in 2009, scoring World Cup giant slalom points three times and earning back a slot on the U.S. Ski Team. Sunday's race will mark the fifth time he has started in Soelden.

Also in the blocks are Tommy Ford (Bend, OR) and a racer to be named following a time trial set for early this week in Saas Fee, Switzerland. According to men's U.S. Ski Team Head Coach Sasha Rearick, the top 100 giant slalom racers in the U.S. are invited to start the time trial for a shot to race in Soelden. Among the hopefuls are Dane Spencer (Boise, ID) and Warner Nickerson (Gilford, NH).

"Tommy deserves to start in Soelden," said Rearick. "He's skied so strong throughout the summer camps and has shown tremendous improvement in GS. This will be his first World Cup start and it will be exciting to see what he can do with it."

With five World Cup titles to her credit and two World Championship gold medals in 2009, Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) also has a good thing going. Yet, this time around Soelden marks the start of Vonn's quest to add a giant slalom podium to her resume. She has a number of top 10 finishes in GS, including a career best fourth at the Aspen Winternational last winter, yet has not finished better than ninth in Soelden.

"It's on the list of goals for the season," said Vonn. "But I do have a pretty long list. I can say that I'm feeling better than I ever have on my giant slalom skis. They felt so comfortable the first time I clicked into them in New Zealand and that hasn't changed. I still have some more testing to do to get everything right, but I'm ready for Soelden."

Also geared up for the World Cup start is 2006 Olympic GS gold medalist Julia Mancuso (Olympic Valley, CA), who spent the last week and a half fine tuning things in Saas Fee training directly along side the U.S. men.

"We're really encouraged with Julia's preparation this year," said women's Head Coach Jim Tracy. "She is healthy and feeling strong on her skis, plus she's hungry and ready to get things started. Sarah [Schleper, Vail, CO] is also ripping in GS right now. We'll have a good group in there."

Megan McJames (Park City, UT), who scored a personal best 14th in Soelden last season, will also start for the U.S. women along with two other athletes to be named later this week.

"It's full-on winter here," said women's Technical Head Coach Trevor Wagner. "It's been staying really cold and snowing quite a bit. There's a total green line across the valley where the snow ends and the grass begins, but the conditions up on the glacier are awesome."

Festivities in Soelden kick off Friday with a bib draw for the top 10 women's GS racers including Vonn before steamrolling through the weekend with race action beginning with the women on Saturday and men on Sunday.

Universal Sports will broadcast same-day coverage of both races at 10 a.m. ET on their 24-hour television network with on-demand streaming also available later each day on UniversalSports.com.