Ski lift

SESTRIERE, Italy -- Now this was just the pick-me-up the US Ski Team needed.

Just as the shock of Bode Miller's disqualification in the Alpine combined had begun to set in, American Ted Ligety turned the old news into gold news. Ligety, a 21-year-old slalom and giant slalom specialist from Park City, Utah, turned in two dominating slalom runs to record a surprise victory and deliver the United States its first Alpine medal of these Games.

After finishing 22d in the downhill portion -- the first run of the three-pronged race, which began at noon -- Ligety won both ends of the slalom that began at dusk, besting Croatia's Ivica Kostelic by .53 seconds with a combined time of 3 minutes 9.35 seconds.

Austria's Rainer Schoenfelder won the bronze.

After a time of 44.09 seconds in the first slalom run put Ligety in fourth place, Miller's disqualification allowed him to jump to third, .86 behind Austrian Benjamin Raich and .46 behind Kostelic.

So Ligety turned up the heat. He crossed the line in his second run in a blistering 43.84 seconds. Kostelic followed him out of the gate and finished .99 seconds behind in the run.

That left Raich as the only man with a chance to deny Ligety the gold, and the Austrian great was pressured into the Miller mistake -- straddling a gate -- and was disqualified.

''I didn't know [I'd won the race] until I saw Benni go out," said Ligety, who won only the fourth Olympic Alpine gold ever for US men. ''It's definitely not the way I want to win ski races. I'd rather beat guys on the course."

Despite his age, Ligety is far from an unexpected star of the US team. Ligety, in his second World Cup season, already had recorded two thirds and a second before the Olympic break.

''This is just so awesome," said a beaming Ligety at a news conference as his parents, Bill and Cyndi, looked on. ''It's so hard to put it into words. On the downhill I was OK, but nothing spectacular. After the first slalom run I felt mediocre. But I was in fourth place so I knew I would have a good chance if I put down a good second run."

Ligety's margin of victory was so solid that it helped make up for a sense that he won on the mistakes of others.

''I really wish Bode hadn't straddled, but I didn't think [winning] was possible. Today, I felt if I would even be close to a medal I would be so happy."

But then with Miller gone -- and a medal possible with a solid second run -- Ligety worked on his mental approach to the race, hoping that his rhythm would take over once he started.

It did.

''I was trying to stay loose up there, to stay relaxed," Ligety said. ''I knew if I could ski well I'd have a chance. After the first couple of gates, I was getting a rhythm and I wasn't taking any stupid chances. When I crossed the line I was suprised to see my lead. I hadn't planned to medal."

After Miller's DQ run, he and Ligety were together in a warm-down room when news came of Miller's disqualification by radio from US coaches. Ligety said both skiers were surprised by the ruling, and added, ''There was no way I could have surmounted him today. [Miller] is the best skier out there. I was kind of lucky in a way."

Ligety joined Bill Johnson and Phil Mahre in 1984 and Tommy Moe in 1994 as US men to win Alpine gold. He is the first American skier ever to win the Alpine combined gold and is the 11th male Olympic medalist in US team history.

''It's something I never would have expected," said Ligety, who acknowledges to being a late bloomer in ski racing whose talent did not develop until his late teens, when he won a silver medal in the Junior Olympics. It was then that the US team named him to the development squad.

''I have no idea how this will change my life," he said, with a look at his parents. ''I'm pretty satisfied with my life so far, so I hope it doesn't change much."