The new face of the U.S. men's Alpine team has never skied "wasted," a la Bode Miller, but he has skied feeling sicker than a dog.
The face, in fact, could have used a box of tissues as he sniffled through an interview last November at training camp in Colorado.
Ted Ligety had a cold.
"Not just a little bit of a cold," he said.
In his sport, the snow must go on.
"It's just such a big part of ski racing, I've raced sick so many times," he said. "It's not really a big deal. You just deal with it."
In 2006, he had flu before a super combined race at a pretty big international event in the Italian Alps — it was called the Olympics.
Shivering and feverish, Ligety shocked everyone by stealing the gold medal from teammate Miller and Austrian star Benni Raich.
At a race last year, Ligety needed a hospital visit and an IV just to make it to the starting gate — and finished fourth.
"A lot of racers have some of their best days when they're sick," Ligety said.
Watch out, Sochi, if next month Ligety turns up sicker than a Siberian husky.
Illness, he said, can narrow one's focus.
"You don't waste energy on all the other frivolous stuff going on around you," he said. "You have to take so much mental energy to get yourself going you take more risks and push yourself harder because you know that's the only chance you have."
It wasn't long after that interview that Ligety started appearing in commercials for a nighttime (and daytime) cold medicine.
Despite his out-of-nowhere gold medal in 2006, at age 21, Ligety did not displace Miller as centerpiece of the men's Alpine team.
Miller overcame his 0-for-Italy performance because he has a soap operatic stage-presence advantage over Ligety and, at any given time, is also the world's best ski racer.
Miller rebounded four years later in Vancouver, Canada, with Olympic gold, silver and bronze, while Ligety failed to medal.
It took until last year for the official takeover. With Miller sidelined all season after knee surgery, Ligety shredded the Alpine World Cup circuit.
He took his specialty, giant slalom, to another level. He won six of eight possible World Cup races, some by ridiculous margins. He claimed a GS race in Soelden, Austria, by 2.75 seconds, which is like lapping the field in the mile run.
At the world championships in Austria, Ligety became the first skier since Jean-Claude Killy in 1968 to win three gold medals.
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