BEAVER CREEK, Colo. – There are the makings of an action-packed second run of giant slalom at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Beaver Creek today. Times are tight heading into the afternoon with Marcel Hirscher topping the charge with a 0.18-second lead over Italian Roberto Nani, who skied a risky and wild first run to barrel into contention.

Some of the best GS skiers in the world are in striking distance, including Felix Neureuther, Alexis Pinturault and Ted Ligety — all within a quarter-second of the leader, Hirscher. American Tim Jitloff is also in the hunt in seventh, 0.61 seconds out.

The first-run set consisted of a couple dramatic rhythm changes. A tricky roller on the upper part of the course claimed the likes of Benjamin Raich, who ran first. Raich didn’t have the benefit of watching other racers and came into the turn with too much speed and too little direction — he wasn’t the only one.

“There’s multiple pieces of terrain in this course,” said Jitloff. “If they choose to, they can set a mean, mean course. The terrain can kick you out of this thing. We all saw (that roller) coming, but I don’t think we saw the amount of speed you were going to bring into it.”

For Ligety, his position is familiar territory. In December, the American contested an almost identical deficit behind Hirscher and Pinturault in the Beaver Creek GS — a race in which he fought back to win.

“It is definitely a tight race,” said Ligety. “With the snow conditions being so good today and the course being in good shape, it lends itself to a tight race. There are five guys within 24 hundredths of a second … I made a big mistake coming onto the dead flat. I made a little bobble at the bottom where I kind of got shot out of the course. Next run, if I can clean those up, I should be in much better shape.”

The second run is scheduled to begin at 2:15 p.m. MT.