By Hank McKee

Oh, that wacky jet stream. Freezing oranges and tourists in Florida and bringing record cold to so much of the country.

Speaking of jet streams, do you even know how fast Ted Ligety is? In GS he is the current gorilla, putting up astronomical winning margins. It’s hard to be that impressed with a guy who already owns two World Cup GS titles, but he is redefining impressive.

After the second win, at Val d’Isere, Coach Sasha Rearick said: “He skied great, top to bottom. … It was perfect execution, true champion style. I’ve been coaching Ted a long time and I’ve never seen him flying this kind of confidence in GS.”

Yet Ligety said: “I felt like I had the E-brake on, just struggling to make it down the hill.”

Fast with the E-brake on. If that doesn’t make an American ski race fan smile, there isn’t much that will.

Shred is plenty confident, no doubt. He’s giving a lot of credit to his Head ski rep Alex Martin for fabulous preparation. Frankly, it’s his own preparation that is making the differences his coach can hardly believe.

“Last year I was a soft 195. This year I consider myself a hard 195,” he says. A late race season injury in 2009 kept him playing catch-up with his conditioning all summer. This year he had no such problem, getting in the gym early and often. He doubts he’s training as much as the epic sessions Lindsey Vonn puts in. “But mine are probably more intense,” he says.

That intensity is paying off. It showed at Beaver Creek where he caught and passed Kjetil Jansrud in the bottom third of the course, and it showed again at Val d’Isere when he was able to ski cleanly the length of a nasty tough course. (How nasty? – see what Steven Nyman had to say about it).

“This year I’m in much better physical shape, so in the last 20 seconds of the hill it’s easier to go hard. Last year I got fatigued pretty early.”

Yet, he’s a long way from believing invincibility. If any thing he might be a bit too humble. He says he “is one of the top guys in GS,” not the master. He says Austrian Marcel Hirscher “is scarey good on the steeps,” and he won’t issue any challenges to come and take that red leader’s bib away from him. “No sense in inciting anything,” he says.

And in that he may be right. Meanwhile, this is amazing ski racing he is treating us all to. And he thinks he might have more left in the tank. Nice.

Speaking of nice, didja see the Nor-Am results from Mikaela Shiffrin and the Europa Cup podium from Will Gregorak? Shiffrin, a first year FIS competitor, started 70th and won a super combined at Panorama, placing second in the first run super G. Gregorak started 72nd and placed second in a slalom at Obereggen, Italy chocked with World Cup skiers. These are not plebeian results. Not even with the large DNF rate at Obereggen.

I feel a bit of apprehension with Shiffrin. She is ludicrously young to be having these types of results against these fields. There is worry she’ll be able to progress normally with the additional attention her successes bring. But then I bet someone worried the same might happen to Annemarie Proell or Tamara McKinney who also started beating older, well established skiers at 15.

Speaking of young stars – what can one make of the Lara Gut suspension? Can anyone else see the potential for a Marc Giradelli like career here? Didn’t read so much coach bad mouthing as mistrust.

And speaking of old ski racers, how about David Chodounsky in Obereggen and Warner Nickerson in Beaver Creek? And what are the odds one, or both, of them will ski their way onto the World Championship team, displacing young up and comers. However you view that situation there can be no doubt it raises the competitive level of all involved.

There’s plenty to look forward to in this still young racing season. Have a safe and speedy holiday season.