JASNÁ: American Mikaela Shiffrin kept her nerve to bag a record-extending 95th career World Cup win as she snuck to victory in the women’s slalom in Jasna on Sunday.
Shiffrin clocked 52.91 seconds and 55.30sec in the two legs down the icy Lukova slope in the Slovakian resort for a winning combined total of 1min 48.21sec.
It was her fifth slalom victory of the season.
Croatian teenager Zrinka Ljutic bagged her second career podium finish in finishing second, at 0.14sec, while Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson rounded out the podium (+0.81).
The second leg, in which the top 30 finishers from the first leg race in reverse order, was an exciting affair.
Heading into the final 10 racers, Germany’s world slalom bronze medallist Lena Duerr duly took the lead, with nine racers to follow.
Austrian Katharina Truppe and France’s Marie Lamure both made mistakes to fall out of the reckoning.
Camille Rast then took the race by the scruff of its neck, laying down an electric run to finish more than one second ahead of Duerr’s time to set up a nail-biting climax.
Her Swiss teammate Michelle Gisin couldn’t cope with that pace, but Swenn Larsson could, grabbing the lead before watching Swedish teammate Sara Hector, the comfortable winner of Saturday’s giant slalom ahead of Shiffrin, make a mistake.
Switzerland’s Melanie Meillard temporarily grabbed the final podium spot, leaving just Ljutic and Shiffrin to come down.
Ljutic, 19, made no mistake with a clean descent, taking the lead to pile the pressure on Shiffrin.
Setting out of the start hut with a 0.52sec lead, the American saw that advantage quickly cut back but she kept her nerve to deliver the seventh fastest second leg.
It was enough for the 28-year-old to edge the Croat and claim yet another victory on the circuit.
Home favourite and reigning Olympic slalom champion Petra Vlhova was not among the starters, her season having come to a premature end after she sustained a torn knee ligament in a crash in Saturday’s giant slalom.
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