Olympic and World champion Mikaela Shiffrin made a winning return to the Alpine skiing world cup circuit on Monday when the American won a slalom
ADVERTISEMENTOlympic and World champion Mikaela Shiffrin made a winning return to the Alpine skiing world cup circuit on Monday when the American won a slalom event in Crans-Montana in Switzerland.
The 20-year old has missed the past two months of competition after tearing her right knee ligament in an accident in Sweden in December.
But there was no signs of discomfort or rust as the American carved up the course in both the first and second heat to secure an 18th career World Cup victory and third this season after winning twice in Aspen.
Crossing over in second place 0.45 seconds off the pace was French skier Nastasia Noens.
Sixth after a solid opening run, 27-year old Noens dealt with the spring-like conditions perfectly to leap up the leaderboard and into second place for her third career podium and first since a Bormio third-place finish in the same discipline in January 2014.
Rounding out this podium was Canadian Marie-Michele Gagnon.
Gagnon was eighth after the first heat and then put in the third fastest time in the second to make to the lowest step of the rostrum.
She was 0.5 seconds off the overall pace for her third career podium finish.
Despite finishing sixth Sweden’s Frida Hansdotter stretched her lead at the top of the discipline standings to 99 points over Slovakian Veronika Velez Zuzulova who was tenth on the day.
There are three more slalom races remaining this season.