FLACHAU, Australia: Mikaela Shiffrin won her first World Cup slalom race in over a year on Tuesday after taking the honours at the alpine skiing event at Flachau.
American Shiffrin, a three-time overall World Cup winner, finished 0.19sec ahead of home hope Katharina Liensberger, and 0.43 in front of Swiss Wendy Holdener after the two runs in Austria to claim her 100th World Cup podium at the age of 25.
She closed out her 68th World Cup win after gaining a razor-thin advantage over Holdener and Petra Vlhova -- two key slalom rivals -- in the first floodlit run in freezing and snowy conditions.
The triumph moves her ahead of Austria's Marcel Hirscher into stand-alone third on the all-time Word Cup winners' list.
Slovakia's Vlhova is the reigning World Cup champion in the discipline, which is Shiffrin's favourite, and stays top of the overall and slalom standings, ahead of Michelle Gisin and Liensberger respectively.
Shiffrin had a difficult 2020 which was marked by the sudden death of her father last February and she finished the year without a single slalom win.