Ted Ligety (USA) celebrates on the podium after winning the gold medal. (Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights The reigning world champion in the event led by .93 seconds after the first run 
 
 Ligety earned his first giant slalom gold and second overall 
 
 It's the first alpine gold of the Sochi Olympics for the U.S. ski team 
 
 KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — Ted Ligety had been working up to this moment since he became the best in the world at what he does seven years ago. 
 
 Now, on a sunny day in the mountains in south Russia, it was right there. 
 
 Right there. 
 
 There were two outcomes. He could grab it, like everyone expected him to all winter. 
 
 Or he could blow it. 
 
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 There was no in-between. He had a huge lead, certainly, but a whole lot of pressure on him, too. 
 
 If he won, well, everyone expected that. If he lost, he'd be a failure. No excuses, no gray area. 
 
 And then Ligety, who performs an intricate, athletic dance through a giant slalom course, skiing like no one else before him or with him, kicked out of the start hut and ... 
 
 Grabbed it. 
 
 With a monumental lead of 1.5 seconds over then-leader Steve Missillier of France, skiing last among the contenders, Ligety got to the finish line in a two-run combined time of 2 minutes, 45.29 seconds, beating silver medalist Missillier by 0.48 seconds and bronze medalist Alexis Pinturault, another Frenchman, by 0.64. 
 
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 He had been heavily favored all winter to win this Olympic giant slalom race and, finally, it was his. 
 
 The upbeat Ligety, one of the nicest men in ski racing, kept saying afterward how "awesome" it felt. But he admitted it was also a huge relief. 
 
 "I've been wanting to win this medal my whole life, but in a realistic sense the last four years," he said. "All season long everybody talks about the Olympics, Olympics, Olympics. At a certain point I was just like, 'Let's do it already. Let's just get this thing over with so we can stop talking about the pressure and everything with it.'" 
 
 Ligety, 29, of Park City, Utah, became the first American male skier to win the Olympic giant slalom, an event he now officially owns. 
 
 And he's just the second U.S. skier ever to possess two Olympic gold medals, joining Andrea Mead-Lawrence, who won the slalom and giant slalom gold medals way back in 1952. 
 
 Phil Mahre, Bill Johnson, Picabo Street, Bode Miller, Lindsey Vonn, Julia Mancuso and other great American skiers have just one gold. 
 
 Some of them were surprise winners. Some were favorites. It might be harder to win as a favorite, Ligety said. 
 
 "Ski racing is probably the least guaranteed sport out there," he said. "It's really rare when the favorites win. So far here this is the first event that an actual favorite's really won. That's pretty regular on the World Cup. The best in the world are on the podium often times but don't always win. It's easy to say they failed because they get third or second or fourth of fifth. It's not that simple." 
 
 Ligety knows the other side, too. He won his first gold — a big surprise — in combined as a 21-year-old in Torino in 2006. 
 
 Four years later, on the way to his second of four World Cup giant slalom season titles, he was shut out in Vancouver, finishing ninth in the GS. 
 
 "The first gold medal came a lot easier," Ligety said. "At that point, there was a lot less of the struggles of the World Cup, the struggles of the grind. To win a gold medal now, especially after having Vancouver being really tough and the Olympics so far here being lackluster, to be able to throw down in an event I had the most passion in and I was the favorite in ... 
 
 "To be able to do that is awesome." 
 
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 He said he wasn't discouraged by earlier in Sochi finishing 12th in the super-combined and 14th in the super-G. 
 
 "This is the event I wanted to win," he said. "The combined, it would have been awesome to win a medal there. But that wasn't the one I cared so much about. And I knew I was an outside chance in super-G. This is where I knew I had a good chance. 
 
 "I knew my skiing was in the right spot. I know where I stand in giant slalom. To be able to throw down in that kind of pressure and be up there with some of the greats is really an honor." 
 
 U.S. men's coach Sasha Rearick said that the earlier results — and the triumph Wednesday — kind of fit a schedule the staff and Ligety had planned with the disappointing Vancouver results in mind. 
 
 "Ted went in (to Vancouver) on the first days, so he was there for a long, long time and didn't get the quality training during the time he was in Vancouver," Rearick said. "He lost his timing and feel and then lost his ability to trust himself. What we did here is we brought him in later. We knew he was going to sacrifice on the combined side but that he was going to come into the GS with his time sparkling." 
 
 Ski racing has changed a lot since Mead-Lawrence doubled in 1952. Actually, it's changed a lot in giant slalom just since two years ago, when the FIS, the international federation of skiing, mandated a change in GS equipment, ordering the use of longer, straighter skis. 
 
 The new skis are harder to turn than the shorter shaped skis. But Ligety, who was also good on the old skis, figured out quickly how the new skis and his style of longer, arced turns could come together in a faster tour through the gates. 
 
 No one else has been able to duplicate his speed on a GS course, and he was won some races in the past two years by huge margins. 
 
 The first run Wednesday was such a time. 
 
 Maybe six or so skiers were given a chance to compete with Ligety in the race, most prominently World Cup overall champion Marcel Hirscher and Pinturault. 
 
 Ted Ligety speeds down the hill on Wednesday in the first run of the giant slalom. (Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY Sports) 
 
 Ligety watched his contenders, some of the best skiers in the world, kick out of the start gate and post seemingly fast times, the first six of them all within 0.52 seconds of one another. 
 
 Then Ligety, a two-time world champion in the event, wearing bib No. 7, in the most important run of his life, absolutely annihilated his competition. 
 
 On a tactically challenging course-set, Ligety made one beautifully rounded turn after another and finished in a time of 1 minute, 21.08 seconds. 
 
 When his time was posted — 1.33 seconds faster than then-leader Thomas Fanara of France — the crowd at the Rosa Khutor alpine center gasped. 
 
 The margin was later trimmed to 1.27 seconds when Davide Simoncelli of Italy came in second from the 20th start position, and then to 0.93 when Czech Ondrej Bank took the second spot from way back in the 28th spot. 
 
 Pinturault and Hirscher were nearly 1½ seconds behind, in sixth and seventh place. Missillier was exactly 1.50 seconds back, in 10th place. 
 
 A margin of a second — or 0.93, in this case — is huge, a lot of breathing room for the leader. 
 
 In the second run, Bank and Simoncelli weren't fast and didn't finish in the top three. So Ligety started with a 1.50-second lead on Missillier, who had the fastest second run and was in first place with only Ligety left among the contenders. 
 
 Ligety knew that, and he skied conservatively. But at one point, he almost slid out on a right-boot turn. 
 
 He avoided the catastrophe and smoothly carried it to the finish. His second run was just the 14th-fastest but it was all he needed. 
 
 He had won this race on the first run. 
 
 "I'm just really glad I had a good buffer," Ligety said. "If I didn't have that buffer, it would have been really tough to really have to throw down as hard as you possibly could. There are a lot of places on this course you can lose it. 
 
 "The competitive side of me when I crossed the finish line seeing only 48 hundredths was a little mad at myself for not pushing harder at some points. But all I really cared about was seeing a green light when I crossed the finish line, whether it was a hundredth of a second or two seconds." 
 
 Miller, 36, who in seemingly another lifetime was a great GS skier — he won an Olympic silver medal in GS in 2002 but last won a GS race in 2005 — had a ragged run and finished 26th in the first run, too far out to contend in the second run. Overall, he ended up 20th, 2.53 seconds back, the fourth American behind Ligety, Tim Jitloff (15th) and Jared Goldberg (19th). 
 
 Afterward, Miller said he won't compete in the slalom Saturday, so the GS was his last race of these Games and probably of his Olympic career. He won six medals, a U.S. record. 
 
 "It's tough to have my last race here look like that," Miller said. "But I feel really good about where I am. I feel like I did my best. I came out with a medal, so I'm happy." 
 
 Miller, who tied for a bronze medal Sunday in the Olympic super-G, said he was bothered during the Games by both of his knees. He missed all of last season after having microfracture surgery on his left knee. He twisted his right knee in a violent crash in a GS race in St. Moritz a week before the first Olympic race. 
 
 He said he plans to finish the World Cup season "barring something going really weird with my knee." ||||| He came, he saw, he conquered. 
 
 On Wednesday afternoon at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center in Sochi, Ted Ligety became the first American skier to capture gold in the men's giant slalom. 
 
 Ligety, who entered as the favorite and held a commanding lead after his first run, finished with a total time of 2:45.29. 
 
 Before Wednesday, the Sochi Games had been a bit of a disappointment for the 29-year-old from Salt Lake City. He came into the giant slalom having finished just 12th in the men's super-combined and 14th in the super-G. 
 
 But all that will be forgotten now, and Ligety will have his name forever etched in the annals of American Olympic history. 
 
 Steve Missillier of France, nicknamed "the missile," led the field up until Ligety's final run. He ended up with a second-place finish and a silver medal. 
 
 Rounding out the podium was Missilier's compatriot, Alexis Pinturault, who captured bronze.
– After lousy finishes in both the men's super-combined and super-G skiing events, Sochi was looking like a bust for Ted Ligety—until today. Ligety became the first American ever to earn a gold medal in the men's giant slalom, according to Bleacher Report. Ligety came in as the favorite, and had an incredible 1.5-second lead after his first run. He finished with a combined time of 2:45.29, which was .48 seconds better than silver medalist Steve "The Missile" Missillier of France, and 0.64 better than Alexis Pinturault, also of France. Utah native Ligety has now won two gold medals, putting him in a club with only one other American skier—Andrea Mead-Lawrence, who won two back in 1952, USA Today points out. Skiing stars like Picabo Street, Bode Miller, and Lindsey Vonn all won only a single gold. "To be able to do that is awesome," Ligety said. "The first gold came a lot easier."