Feb. 14--Since the end of 2010, Ted Ligety had been the king of giant slalom, the event many feel provides the best measure of an Alpine skier's overall talent.
This season, Austria's Marcel Hirscher had been threatening Ligety's reign, coming into the World Championships at Vail, Colo., with wins in four of the five World Cup races.
And Hirscher seemed ready to take the crown after winning the first giant slalom run Friday, building a lead of .24 seconds over Ligety.
Then Ligety showed such stunning mastery of giant slalom's demands, carving turns perfectly and carrying tremendous speed between them while seeming to float across the snow in the second run, that it brought him a third straight world title by .45 seconds.
His second run was .55 faster than anyone else in the field and .69 better than Hirscher.
"This one is more emotional than some of other ones," Ligety, the reigning Olympic champion in giant slalom, told NBC Sports Network when asked to rank his victories, "because this year has been a little bit more of a struggle."
It was the seventh career world championships medal for Ligety, 30, of Park City, Utah, putting him one ahead of Lindsey Vonn as the leading world meet medalist in U.S. history. He had won a bronze in the combined Sunday.
His victory meant Team USA has won at least one gold medal in four straight world championships and seven of the last eight, continuing a period of unprecedented success for U.S. Alpine skiers. Ligety won three golds at the previous worlds in 2013.
He also became just the third man to win a record three straight world titles in the same event, joining Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden (slalom) and Kjetil Aamodt of Norway (combined).
Ligety, Olympic combined champion in 2006, has won four of the last five World Cup season titles in giant slalom but trails Hirscher by 138 points in this year's standings with three races to go.
