{"id":1379717,"date":"2018-12-01T17:48:01","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T00:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/local-news\/birds-of-prey-gs-the-race-for-second-place\/"},"modified":"2018-12-01T17:48:01","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T00:48:01","slug":"birds-of-prey-gs-the-race-for-second-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/local-news\/birds-of-prey-gs-the-race-for-second-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds of Prey GS: The race for second place?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chris Freud<\/a><\/span> BEAVER CREEK \u2014 Here’s your morning brain-teaser: Who was the last person not named Marcel Hirscher or Ted Ligety to win a giant slalom at Birds of Prey?
\nWe’ll play the “Jeopardy” music for a moment.
\nBuzz in and say, “Alex, who is Switzerland’s Carlo Janka in 2009?”
\nJanka completed three wins in as many days with his GS win, and, ever since, this has been the Ted and Marcel Show.
\nLigety won in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and during the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.
\nHirscher won in 2011, 2015 and 2017.
\nAnd, yes, if you were playing attention, Beaver Creek picked up a second GS from Val d’Isere, France in 2011, so they both won that year.
\nWhile there are a bunch of racers in Sunday, Dec. 2’s Xfinity Birds of Prey Audi FIS Ski World Cup giant slalom \u2014 the first run is at 9:45 a.m. with the flip at 12:45 p.m. \u2014 there is a tendency to focus on the two.
\nTaking it one step further, is this a one-person show and is everyone else racing for second?
\nMarcel Hirscher may be as a close to a mortal lock in ski racing as there is. The Austrian has won five straight World Cup starts in GS dating back to Val d’Isere on Dec. 12, 2017. Those five straight do not include Olympic gold in GS.
\nHirscher has won nine of the last 10 World Cup giant slaloms.
\nSince the season opener in Soelden, Austria, on Oct. 25, 2015, there have been 25 World Cup GS races. Hirscher has won 14 of them, been on the podium in 23 of them and his “worst” finish was sixth place in Yuzawa Naeba, Japan on Feb. 13, 2016.
\nThe reason we use Oct. 25, 2015, as a reference point is that day was Ligety’s last World Cup win.
\nAs much as Ligety has done \u2014 25 career World Cup wins, five Worlds gold medals and the 2014 Olympic GS championship \u2014 we are now in the Hirscher Era, even in giant slalom.
\nAs a journalist, one roots for the story, and there would be none greater than Ligety, fully healthy again, summoning his old greatness and making a triumphant return to “his hill” at Beaver Creek to defeat his old rival.
\nSee, this stuff writes itself.
\nBut reality has a way of writing itself, too.
\nThis is Hirscher’s race.<\/p>\n

The contenders
\nThis should be the second GS of the season, but, for the second year in a row, Soelden was scrubbed.
\nNot surprisingly, Hirscher won the GS title last season with 720 points. Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen was second (575), followed by France’s Alexis Pinturault (329), Austria’s Manuel Feller (309) and Sweden’s Matts Olssen (299).
\nLast year’s Birds of Prey GS podium was Hirscher, Kristoffersen, and Germany’s Stefan Luitz. Ligety finished seventh and Tommy Ford was a surprise 10th.<\/p>\n

The picks
\nOur stellar panel continued its unblemished record of successfully not picking Saturday, Dec. 1’s winner, Max Franz, but we’re willing to give it go for giant slalom
\nChris Freud, Vail Daily: Hirscher. Any questions?
\nShauna Farnell, ski-writing goddess: Going for the …read more<\/a> <\/p>\n

Via:: Vail Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEAVER CREEK \u2014 Here’s your morning brain-teaser: Who was the last person not named Marcel Hirscher or Ted Ligety to win a giant slalom at Birds of Prey?
\nWe’ll play the “Jeopardy” music for a moment.
\nBuzz in and say, “Alex, who is Switzerland’s Carlo Janka in 2009?”
\nJanka completed three wins in as many days with his GS win, and, ever since, this has been the Ted and Marcel Show.
\nLigety won in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and during the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.
\nHirscher won in 2011, 2015 and 2017.
\nAnd, yes, if you were playing attention, Beaver Creek picked up a second GS from Val d’Isere, France in 2011, so they both won that year.
\nWhile there are a bunch of racers in Sunday, Dec. 2’s Xfinity Birds of Prey Audi FIS Ski World Cup giant slalom \u2014 the first run is at 9:45 a.m. with the flip at 12:45 p.m. \u2014 there is a tendency to focus on the two.
\nTaking it one step further, is this a one-person show and is everyone else racing for second?
\nMarcel Hirscher may be as a close to a mortal lock in ski racing as there is. The Austrian has won five straight World Cup starts in GS dating back to Val d’Isere on Dec. 12, 2017. Those five straight do not include Olympic gold in GS.
\nHirscher has won nine of the last 10 World Cup giant slaloms.
\nSince the season opener in Soelden, Austria, on Oct. 25, 2015, there have been 25 World Cup GS races. Hirscher has won 14 of them, been on the podium in 23 of them and his “worst” finish was sixth place in Yuzawa Naeba, Japan on Feb. 13, 2016.
\nThe reason we use Oct. 25, 2015, as a reference point is that day was Ligety’s last World Cup win.
\nAs much as Ligety has done \u2014 25 career World Cup wins, five Worlds gold medals and the 2014 Olympic GS championship \u2014 we are now in the Hirscher Era, even in giant slalom.
\nAs a journalist, one roots for the story, and there would be none greater than Ligety, fully healthy again, summoning his old greatness and making a triumphant return to “his hill” at Beaver Creek to defeat his old rival.
\nSee, this stuff writes itself.
\nBut reality has a way of writing itself, too.
\nThis is Hirscher’s race.<\/p>\n

The contenders
\nThis should be the second GS of the season, but, for the second year in a row, Soelden was scrubbed.
\nNot surprisingly, Hirscher won the GS title last season with 720 points. Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen was second (575), followed by France’s Alexis Pinturault (329), Austria’s Manuel Feller (309) and Sweden’s Matts Olssen (299).
\nLast year’s Birds of Prey GS podium was Hirscher, Kristoffersen, and Germany’s Stefan Luitz. Ligety finished seventh and Tommy Ford was a surprise 10th.<\/p>\n

The picks
\nOur stellar panel continued its unblemished record of successfully not picking Saturday, Dec. 1’s winner, Max Franz, but we’re willing to give it go for giant slalom
\nChris Freud, Vail Daily: Hirscher. Any questions?
\nShauna Farnell, ski-writing goddess: Going for the …read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1379717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 18:16:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KKCH - The Lift FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1379717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1379717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1379717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1379717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}