Ted Ligety swears he doesn't feel any different.

Doesn't buy different clothes or hang with different friends or eat different foods. Nothing much seems to have changed at all, in fact, since the 25-year-old Park City native unexpectedly won a historic gold medal at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

Oh, except one thing.

"I just don't have to live with my parents anymore," he said.

Yet Ligety is bound to start noticing a few other differences soon, aside from the place of his own in Park City.

Once he reaches the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, for example, he won't be a "nobody," coming almost out of nowhere to shock the field in the combined event. No, he's a veteran now -- among the headliners on the U.S. Ski Team, in fact, along with heavy gold-medal favorite Lindsey Vonn -- and enjoying the kind of season on the World Cup circuit that suggests he could be a serious contender for more than one medal, this time.

"There's definitely a lot more hoopla," he acknowledged, "but at the same time, it's skiing, still."

Just the same, a lot really has changed for Ligety and the rest of the men on the U.S. Ski Team, including Provo's Steven Nyman, since the Turin Games. There, controversial superstar Bode Miller was dominating the spotlight, with his underwhelming performance and boorish behavior overshadowing even Ligety's gold medal.

But now, Ligety is a clear leader on the team, even though Miller is back after spending two seasons competing on his own because of lingering conflicts with ski team officials. And though he suffered a knee injury that forced him to spend his summer in rehab, Ligety has been racing as well as ever -- with two silver medals on the World Cup circuit so far, and four other top-10 finishes. His silver in the super-G at Val d'Isere in France last week was the first career medal in a speed event for the giant slalom specialist, helping him rank sixth in the overall World Cup standings.

"It's not a super surprise, even if I don't expect to be on a super-G podium very often," he said. "Hopefully I will be able to keep skiing at this level and even get better."

For his part, Miller has been coming along reasonably well, too.

He hasn't reached the podium since rejoining the ski team in October, but he has finished fourth once and fifth twice, including in the same super-G in which Ligety medaled.

The two-time overall World Cup champion is skipping the Bormio downhill in Italy this week, however, to return to the United States and concentrate on improving his lagging fitness while resting the ankle that he sprained while playing volleyball with teammates. He missed most of his offseason training while deciding whether to return to skiing.

Miller is expected to return to the World Cup circuit for a slalom in Croatia on Jan. 6, giving him another month of racing before the Vancouver Games -- but he won't be considered a favorite in any event, let alone the five for which he was heralded in the last Olympics.

"Regardless of whether Bode is on the team or not, he has proven he's one of the best skiers in America," teammate Marco Sullivan said.

Ligety, too, anymore.

Though he won't be able to defend his Olympic title because the super-combined has replaced the combined -- the super-combined includes one run of slalom and one run of downhill, rather than one run of downhill and two slalom runs -- he's coming closer and closer to becoming a dangerous all-around skier, after spending a lot of time recently working on his speed events.

That's something that has started to yield results like his super-G silver medal. But he's also trying to put together two strong runs, something that has often eluded him this season -- such as when he nearly skied out of his first run of a giant slalom at Val d'Isere, only to bounce back by winning the second and finishing 10th in the end.

"Ted is skiing great," men's head coach Sasha Rearick said at the time. "Awesome skiing, balanced skiing, dynamic skiing. That's why he's going really fast and that's why he's making mistakes right now."

Rearick is one who deserves credit for helping coax Miller back into the team, and has tried to foster a greater sense of teamwork among his skiers. Part of that involves arranging accommodations for the team away from the athletes village during the Vancouver Games "to keep the team environment" while limiting distractions. That's an approach the second-year coach used at the world championships in France last season, where Ligety won bronze in the giant slalom, and the athletes have said it has helped build morale.

"The cool thing is we cheering each other on and we pushing each other," Nyman said. "If we keep doing that, good things will come."

Nyman hopes good things come for him, too.

The 28-year-old who will celebrate his Feb. 12 birthday at the opening ceremony in Vancouver spent all last season coping with nagging knee injuries, which forced him into a long summer layoff to let them heal. He's feeling better now, but has climbed inside the top 30 in only one of his four finishes this season-- an 18th place in the downhill at Val Gardena in Italy last weekend.

His layoff provided some perspective, however.

"I'm hungry," he said. "Being injured, you're taken away from what you love, and I've really realized what my priorities are and what I want. So I'm hungry and I'm focused."

Ligety, meanwhile, is just trying to keep doing what he's doing.

The first American man to win an Alpine event at the Olympics since Tommie Moe took downhill gold at the 1994 Lillehammer Games said winning at such a young age has proved surreal -- "I can't believe I did it," he said -- and that he investigated insuring his body against injury with Lloyd's of London a couple of years ago, only to discover that actuaries view downhill skiing as the world's second-most dangerous sport, behind rodeo. That made it far too expensive to afford.

And though he aspires to win again, he's certainly not counting on another medal, for the same reason that Vonn has downplayed her chances of winning the five golds that some have predicted for her.

"It's more likely that you won't win it," Ligety said, noting the way conditions on the slopes can change from day to day and even from skier to skier. "It's so easy for it not to go your way. It's such an imprecise science. ... You just have to go into every race with a calculated nonchalance, I guess, and hopefully you can ski your best on that particular day."

See?

Some things never change.

mcl@sltrib.com