Ted Ligety To Race On World Pro Ski Tour - Wow !

In a surprise, or should that be a shock move USA's Ted Ligety has annoiunced that he will be racing on the World Pro Ski Tour this season. 

The tour said "We are incredibly excited to announce the two-time Olympic gold medalist, Ted Ligety will race in the Tour this year!

“It’s great to see how the World Pro Ski Tour has created an awesome alternative and supplement to traditional World Cup racing,” says Ted. “I’m looking forward to joining the WPST this season between World Cups.”

On the face of things Ligety ought to be expected to walk away with a suitcase full of prize money. However over the years the performance of world cup ski racers has been variable. 

When the pro ski tour was last a high profile event active world cup ski racers were effectively excluded so parallels can be difficult to draw.  Setting to one side pre world cup pro tours, in the early days of Bob Beattie's tour recently retired world cup winners did well, however relative unknowns such as Hugo Nindl and Harald Stuefer ran Jean Claude Killy close with Nindl becoming champion in 1974. By the 1980s a seeding system was in place to ensure that bigger names moere consistently reached the podium. 

In earlier iterations of the pro tour world cup racers would have had little experience of the more intense parallel, prom jump format, something now also adopted by FIS.

Bottom line, setting to one side a Ligety whitewash it's win win. A good season and Ligety gives WPST some great headlines, a tougher season shows the quality of WPST's field

The World Pro Ski Tour is a nationwide tour of events featuring the popular “dual” format of alpine ski racing. By placing two athletes side-by-side, spectators on-site and TV viewers consume the most exciting and easiest to understand format in alpine ski racing.

Competition begins in December in Vail, Colorado!