Ted Ligety to defend Olympic combined title Sunday

Ted Ligety didn’t only shock the Alpine world four years ago when, as a relative unknown, he won the Olympic combined at the 2006 Turin Games.

Ligety stunned himself.

“I still don’t really believe that I won,” he reflected four years later. “I think back at it and I’m still kind of in shock. It’s kind of crazy to say that I’m an Olympic gold medalist.”

Sunday, in another Olympics, on another continent, Ligety defends his title at Whistler Creekside.

It won’t be easy. Ligety needed a few breaks in Sestriere. Bode Miller, his teammate, won the downhill portion and took a .97 lead into what was then a two-run slalom.

Miller, though, as is his custom in technical races, narrowly clipped the inside of a gate in his first run and was disqualified. It took instant replay to confirm the decision.

Ligety got another huge break when Austria’s Benjamin Raich, who would go on to win gold in giant slalom and slalom, skied out on his second run only 15 seconds from the gold medal.

When Ligety secured the gold, teammates Scott Macartney and Steven Nyman ran out and tackled him to the snow.

“I guess I didn’t realize what had happened until I saw my parents and they were bawling,” Ligety said. “I still don’t even realize what happened.”

His win wasn’t a fluke. Ligety, then 21, has developed into a world-class racer, though his best event now is giant slalom. He won the World Cup giant slalom title in 2007-08 and leads the circuit this year. He will be one of the medal favorites in Tuesday’s Olympic giant slalom race.

The format change in the combined, from two slalom runs to one, swings some of the advantage back to the speed racers.

“It actually makes it a little more fair,” Ligety said, “because the speed guys don’t lose quite as much time to the slalom side of it.”

The format change could benefit U.S. teammate Miller, who needs only to complete one slalom run. It certainly helped Julia Mancuso, not the strongest slalom racer, win silver in last week’s women’s combined.

Miller is training hard in Whistler to improve his gate technique. In fact, he knocked the wind out of himself after crashing in a Thursday training session.

Another name to watch in super combined is Austria’s Raich, looking to make amends for his 14th place finish in Friday’s super-G.

chris.dufresne @latimes.com