Ted Ligety of the United States won the season's penultimate World Cup giant slalom in Kranjska Gora on Saturday to keep alive his hopes of retaining the discipline title for another year. Beat Feuz of Switzerland retains the overall World Cup lead.

Ligety finished Saturday’s race in an aggregate time of 2 minutes, 22.47 seconds to beat second-place Alexis Pinturault of France. Marcel Hirscher of Austria finished third. Feuz failed to qualify for the second run.

After eight of nine races, Feuz has 1,250 points overall, 55 clear of Hirscher. Fellow countryman Didier Cuche is in fifth place overall with 953.

Feuz has been struggling with a left knee injury for weeks and will undergo surgery after the season. He said he didn't expect to score points.

 "It was more of a practice run for me," Feuz said. "My knee was just fine during the race. I will take some rest now before downhill training [in Schladming, Austria] on Tuesday."

Meanwhile in World Cup cross-country skiing news, Norway's Eldar Roenning won the 50km classical-style race in Norway, edging Swiss leader Dario Cologna by 0.6 seconds. Cologna remains at the top of the overall World Cup leaderboard with 1,900 points.

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