Intro:

Ted Ligety of the United States won the season's penultimate FIS World Cup giant slalom to keep
alive his hopes of retaining the discipline title for another year.

The GS champion in 2008, '10 and '11, Ligety trails leader Marcel Hirscher of Austria by 92 points with one race remaining.

Script:

With the FIS World Cup season rapidly reaching its close, Kranjska Gora's hosted the penultimate giant slalom.

There was no shortage of excitement, with Ted Ligety trying to keep alive his slim hopes of successfully defending his discipline title.

The American led at the halfway stage, thanks to a time of one minute 10.73 seconds.

Beat Feuz has been battling a left knee injury for weeks and will undergo surgery after the season.

The overall points leader said beforehand that he didn't expect to score points in this event.

And that's what happened.

He trailed Ligety by a massive 4.25 seconds and failed to survive the cut.

The fastest went last, second time down.

A heavy fall resulted in what looked like serious injury to Florian Eisath.

The Italian though managing a brave smile as he was carried away.

With Feuz out of the way, Marcel Hirscher had the chance to make inroads into the Swiss' lead, while preserving his own position at the top of the giant slalom standings.

The Austrian slipped into the lead with an aggregate two minutes 24.50 seconds.

But Alexis Pinturault soon nudged him off that perch.

One of the rising stars of the sport, the Frenchman, who turns 21 later this month, had a much-improved second run to give him a cumulative two minutes 24.08 seconds.

Next down though, was 'superman.'

But no heroics this time from Massimiliano Blardone - the Italian veteran slipping to third.

Still to come - Ligety, the last man down.

Could the American complete the job?

Absolutely.

Ligety built on his commanding first-run lead to finish in an aggregate time of two minutes, 22.47 seconds to beat Pinturault by 1.61 seconds.

Hirscher was 2.03 behind.

It was Ligety's 11th career win - all in GS - and his fourth victory on the Podkoren course to equal the record of Austria's Benjamin Raich on this hill.

And it keeps the race for the GS title alive - just.