Park City’s Ted Ligety does not medal in giant slalom, but his legacy already goes well beyond that

Yongpyong, South Korea • Ted Ligety looked at the clock and couldn’t believe it. On a bluebird day, on the hill where he won his first World Cup, America’s giant slalom king’s reign had come to an end.

“I was really surprised when I saw the time,” Ligety said. “It didn’t feel like I crushed it, but it didn’t feel like 2 1/2 seconds back.”

Eventually, time gets away from all of us.

Ligety’s fourth Olympics were a comeback story in itself after multiple surgeries and three straight seasons ended by injury. They were a medal quest, too, as the Park City native tried to defend his gold from Sochi, or at least muscle his way back onto the podium. They may have also been a swan song.

It has been 12 years since Ligety shocked the world by winning Olympic gold in Turin, 12 years since he carved his way to that first World Cup victory on a hill in South Korea.

“It feels like both yesterday and 100 years ago,” he said this week.

Ligety hasn’t made up his mind yet, but these could well be his last Olympics. They were almost certainly his last as a medal contender. Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal made history this week as the oldest alpine skier to ever win Olympic gold at 35 years old. Ligety is 33 now.

“I’ll be 37 years old then. It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” he said. “We’ll see. I hope to keep skiing at high level and get back to where I can and should be. Who knows if that is in four years still or a couple of years less.”

He still has runs left. Ligety came to Pyeongchang feeling better about his health and skiing than he has in a while. Last month, he grabbed a third-place finish in Garmisch, Germany. He has skied well at times at these Games. He kicked off his Olympics with a fifth-place finish in the alpine combined, on the strength of his slalom run. But he has not been the Ligety of old, whose speed and pinpoint precision let him carve lines through the gates that left other skiers in awe.

Ligety has owned the giant slalom over the years. He won the gold in Sochi and 24 of his 25 career World Cup wins have come in the event. They call him “Mr. GS” for a reason.

“My goal was definitely to try to be challenging for a medal here. I thought that was definitely in my range,” he said after his first run. After his second, he added, “I just didn’t have the speed and the legs today.”

There would be no storybook ending in Pyeongchang, just a 15th-place finish on Sunday afternoon. But Ligety’s story and his status among America’s skiing greats cannot be diminished.

Two Olympic golds. Twenty-five World Cup wins. Fifty-one World Cup podiums. The first ski racer to win three straight world titles in giant slalom.

Ligety wasn’t thinking about all of that this week.

“Right now, in the midst of my career, I don’t think about legacy,” he said.

Let his teammates do it for him then.

Bode Miller was stronger in all disciplines. Mikaela Shiffrin may in short order become the country’s greatest ever. But Ligety should be mentioned among the best to ever ski for Team USA.

“I think Ted could be argued as one of the best American skiers who’s out there,” American skier Ryan Cochran-Siegle said. “His style and his technique is pretty unbelievable.”

Ligety will finish out this World Cup season and plans to race again next year. But another Olympics? Just getting to Pyeongchang has been a battle.

Ligety has been competing since he was a teen and it has started to catch up with his body. He has torn his ACL, a muscle in his hip. He has herniated discs and needed back surgery to deal with a nerve issue that sent shooting pain down his legs.

“The one thing that’s truly remarkable with Ted is he is an absolute competitor who hates to lose,” alpine ski coach Sasha Rearick said. “He will do everything he can, put 100-percent effort, into getting better every day. That’s what’s helped him get back to these Olympics.”

As he stood at the top of the hill for his final run in Pyeongchang, Ligety said, he did not want to consider it could be the last of a career defined by Olympic rings and gold.

“The Olympics is the big show, for sure,” he said later. “That’s what everybody looks forward to be able to race. In the U.S., that’s what gets the attention. It’s only natural to think about that here. I don’t know if I’m going to keep going for another four years.”

As such, Ligety appears to have appreciated these Games. He has shared these moments with his wife, Mia, who has traveled with him on the World Cup circuit this season. He laughs as he talks about his young son, Jax, climbing over furniture and tearing up hotel rooms.

“When you have a family and stuff like that, it kind of changes your perspective,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes there. There are other priorities than just ski racing.”

Four years ago, Ligety was shouldered with the pressure of being a gold-medal favorite. This time around, he was more relaxed, the cool veteran in the car when he and his teammates took a wrong turn on a Korean highway and nearly missed the start of the opening ceremony.

“As a little kid, I never would have imagined being here and being able to do this as long as I have, and done as well as I have done,” Ligety said this week. “I’m just super excited to here on this stage.”

It may very well have been the last time.