Petra Vlhova got the better of Mikaela Shiffrin in Courchevel (JEFF PACHOUD)
Olympic champion Petra Vlhova clinched her 30th World Cup win on Thursday with a scorching second run to beat Mikaela Shiffrin in the slalom under the lights at Courchevel.
Shiffrin led by 0.17 seconds advantage after the first leg on the Roc de Fer piste but couldn’t complete the job, finishing 0.24sec behind the time set by her chief rival.
Vlhova, winner of the season’s first slalom in Finland, emerged as the lone challenger to Shiffrin, with the rest of the field over a second off the pace after the opening run.
The Slovak denied Shiffrin a 92nd World Cup victory and what would have been a third successive slalom triumph.
“I think (the rivalry) is really good for our sport,” Vlhova told Eurosport.
“We are pushing each other all the time… taking our skiing to a higher level and getting better and better.”
Austria’s Katharina Truppe took third, more than two seconds behind Vlhova, for her fourth career World Cup podium, all of them in the slalom.
Five-time champion Shiffrin remains top of the overall standings on 700 points, 143 clear of Italy’s Federica Brignone. Vlhova moved up to third on 491.
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