Alpine skiing-Svindal and Ligety to miss world championships

Jan 17 ( Reuters) - Olympic gold medallists Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and American Ted Ligety, two of Alpine skiing's biggest names, will miss next month's world championships due to injury.

Svindal, the 2010 Olympic super-G gold medallist and five-times world champion, posted a photograph on Instagram of himself lying in a hospital bed.

"Ever since the Val Gardena downhill (in December) I've had a strange feeling in my knee," said the Norwegian, who finished second in that race and is 11th in the overall World Cup standings.

Svindal, 34, tried training runs in Wengen last week before deciding to undergo surgery which revealed that a meniscus was no longer attached to the bone.

"That's no good in a downhill course...meniscus not attached means no function, and no function means every landing on a jump and every hit to the knee is painful," he wrote.

Svindal's 2016 season also ended early when the tall skier suffering a torn cruciate ligament in a crash in the Kitzbuehel downhill.

Ligety, the reigning Olympic and world giant slalom champion, said on Instagram that he would be going under the knife after suffering severe nerve pain down his left leg.

"Unfortunately surgery means my season is over and a chance to defend my GS title again at World Champs," wrote the 32-year-old double Olympic gold medallist, who also tore a cruciate in training last January.

The world championships start in the Swiss resort of St Moritz on Feb. 6 and Ligety would have been going for his fourth successive title in giant slalom. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Ed Osmond)