Of the first six gold medals won by the US, only one was awarded to someone who had medaled in the Olympics before (Meryl Davis and Charlie White: bronze in the team event here in Sochi, silver in Vancouver in the ice dance). The story for most of the winners has been about someone finally making it big on the biggest stage in the world.

That doesn’t really apply to Ted Ligety. Yes it’d been a long time since he was on top, but this was the 2006 Olympic gold medalist in the combined event. He also went and won the super-G, the combined, and the giant slalom in the last World Championships.

And now he has made some history in Sochi. Ligety’s gold was the first ever by the US in the men’s giant slalom. It also made him the first American alpine skier to win two gold medals in an Olympic career in 62 years!!! The only other American to do so was Andrea Mead-Lawrence with two golds in the 1952 Olympics at the age of 19.

The 29-year old Ligety will go down as one of the greatest alpine skiers in US history no matter what he does from here. He certainly is young enough to make a run at the Olympics in Pyeongchang. He is tied with Bode Miller for the most medals by any American man in the World Championships and if he won another gold in the 2017 event in St. Moritz he’d become just the seventh man in the world to win five World Championship golds.

If you are looking for potential stars that NBC can build their coverage around four years from now it would seem Ligety easily meets that description.

You can learn more about Ligety on his website, tedligety.com, and follow him on twitter @tedligety