Shiffrin scorches slalom on comeback

 American Mikaela Shiffrin scorched to victory in the women's World Cup slalom in Crans-Montana on Monday, just days after making her return to snow training following injury.

The 20-year-old, who suffered a knee injury in December, only returned to training on snow on January 31, but showed no rustiness at the Swiss resort for her 18th victory on the World Cup circuit and the third this season in slalom after winning both races in Aspen.

Shiffrin, the 2014 Olympic gold medalist and a two-time world slalom champion who won the last three World Cup titles in the discipline, clocked a combined time of 1min 29.20sec over the two runs.

France's Nastasia Noens finished second, at 0.45sec, with Canada's Marie-Michele Gagnon rounding out the podium in third, at 0.50sec.

"A good comeback day!" said Shiffrin. "That was a pretty incredible race and it's weird. I'm kind of glad it's over, but I also enjoyed skiing that last run."

Heavy fog descended for the final swathe of racers, making for poor visibility in heavy snow conditions.

"It was really rough and it was a challenge every single gate, and I kept thinking like 'Am I in the course? Did I miss a gate? Am I out of the course yet?’," said Shiffrin.

"I finally came through the finish rethinking and like 'No, I made every gate. Wow, that’s amazing', because it was just bumpy and a wild ride, and a good fight, and kind of the way it should be probably."

In the slalom standings, Sweden's Frida Hansdotter, who finished 6th (+0.73), has 545 points and leads Slovakia's Veronika Velez Zuzulova, who had to be content with 10th on the day (+1.32), by 99 points. There are three more slalom races remaining.

The World Cup tour moves on to the Italian resort of La Thuile for another action-packed week with two trainings, two downhill races and one super-G.
Source :AFP