Three American ski racers kick off the defense of their discipline and overall titles this weekend when the World Cup season gets under way in Soelden, Austria.

The men's and women's overall champions from last season, Vail's Lindsey Vonn and New Hampshire's Bode Miller, will both race in the giant slalom openers today and Sunday, respectively, and Ted Ligety, who won the giant slalom discipline title last season, will try to improve on his second-place finish at Soelden last year.

Ligety, the 24-year-old from Park City, Utah, who won a gold medal in the combined at the 2006 Winter Olympics, said by phone from Austria on Thursday he fully expects to contend for the season titles in both giant slalom and slalom.

"My main goal is to defend the GS title - that's always tough to do when you're leading - but if I ski well and stick to the plan I had last year, I can do it, and then trying to take on the slalom title as well and just try to be in a place at the end of the year where I can compete," Ligety said.

Ligety had hand surgery after tearing a ligament in his right thumb while winning the GS title at the World Cup Finals in Bormio, Italy, in March. He rehabbed in Vail and said he's back to full speed for this season. He and Miller also will race during the only men's World Cup stop in the United States this season, Dec. 4-7 at Beaver Creek.

Vonn, a 24-year-old Ski Club Vail product who won six World Cup races last season en route to her first overall title (and only the seventh ever for an American), said in a summer interview that she expects to be even stronger this season.

Heading into last season, she said she wasn't able to really start working out until July because of knee surgery the previous March. This offseason, she started training hard in May.

"This year is a whole new ballgame, which makes me that much more excited because I'll be that much stronger," Vonn said. "I feel like you always have to keep striving to get better and be faster and stronger. I always look to men's skiing and the biggest difference between men's skiing and women's isn't technique, it's strength."

All-time American great Phil Mahre, who won three straight overall titles in the early 1980s, said Vonn's roots as a tech skier (GS and slalom) in the Midwest (she grew up in Minnesota before moving to Vail) gave way to her greatness in speed events, which makes her a perennial overall threat.

"She was a tech skier and has continued to work hard on all aspects of her skiing," Mahre said. "It will be interesting to see how she holds up to the pressure that comes with being the reigning overall winner this season."

Miller, who races independent of the U.S. Ski Team, is reportedly bigger and stronger this season and should be in the hunt for his third overall title, which would match Mahre's American mark. Miller, who won in Soelden in 2004 and 2005, will race Ligety and the rest of the GS field Sunday.

Vonn, 2006 GS gold medalist Julia Mancuso and Vail's Sarah Schleper, who's returning to the circuit after taking time off to have a baby, will take on the top Europeans in today's GS.