'I think it was clear that Petra had, all together, better skiing and better consistency,' said Shiffrin, who's seeking career win No. The American three-time overall champion was gracious in defeat. Currently on 45 slalom wins, the American is one short of Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark's best mark in giant slalom. Having dealt with a back issue that hampered her training over the last few weeks, Shiffrin was made to wait at least one more day in her bid to match the 32-year-old record for most World Cup victories in a single discipline.

'Equal chances': World Cup skiing has balanced schedule.

Vlhova makes Slovakian skiing history with women's overall World Cup title.

He is here and he is the love of my life,' Vlhova said. Vlhova received her fourth reindeer, a prize for the winner of the race, and said she would name it Michal. Today was just an amazing day for me as well as for my team.' That's it,' Vlhova said about working with Pini. Magoni had coached Vlhova for five years and the Italian helped her become the first overall champion from Slovakia, but he was forced to leave following unflattering remarks on Vlhova's style of skiing reportedly made by him in an interview with an Italian newspaper. It was Vlhova's 21st career win and first since working with her Swiss coach Mauro Pini, who replaced Livio Magoni in the off-season. 'Here on this kind of slope I like to ski, it's something special to me,' Vlhova, who won two slaloms in one weekend here last year, said Saturday from Levi, Finland.

Shiffrin and Vlhova have now each win it four times. No skier other than Vlhova or Shiffrin has won the traditional season-opening slalom since then-overall champion Tina Maze triumphed in 2014. Lena Durr finished 84-100ths behind in third for the German skier's second career podium result, nearly nine years after winning a city event in Moscow. She initially lost a few hundredths from her slim lead of 11-100ths of a second over Shiffrin but accelerated near the end of her final run to win by 31-100thsР’В as the pair continued their dominance in the annual event in Finnish Lapland. Vlhova posted the fastest time in both runs. The Slovakian overall champion had been training for three weeks in Finnish Lapland and skipped a parallel event in Austria last week to get ready for the first race in her strongest discipline.

Practice made perfect for Petra Vlhova on Saturday, beating Mikaela Shiffrin in the first World Cup slalom of the season.

Sten mark 2 vs mark 5