BY USSA

CRANS MONTANA, Switzerland — Fighting through incredibly soft snow conditions, Ted Ligety of Park City was slowed to ninth place in the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup giant slalom at Crans Montana won by Italian Massimiliano Blardone on Sunday.

As the course deteriorated under warm temperatures, the first run leaders struggled to maintain speed in the final run. After leading the giant slalom standings for the first half of the season, Ligety is now 132 points behind Austrian Marcel Hirscher with two giant slalom races left in the season. Hirscher, who was second in the race, also leads the World Cup overall standings by 92 points.

Tommy Ford of Bend, Ore., was 19th and Tim Jitloff of Reno 22nd.

Head coach Sasha Rearick said, “I am stoked with the skiing of Tommy Ford. Today he went out and free skied a lot and found some better movement for his skis, but on the bottom he skied a too-aggressive line and it was just too costly for both him and Tim [Jitloff], which is a bummer. Qualifying for World Cup Finals for Tommy and Tim is going to come down to the last race. There’s about seven guys between 21 and 29 that could make top 25.”