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Mikaela Shiffrin
Photo: Maxim Thore / Bildbyran / IMAGO
Ski star Mikaela Shiffrin celebrated an impressive comeback and won the overall slalom World Cup for the eighth time.
The American won on Sunday in Are, Sweden and can no longer be pushed off the top of the discipline rankings in the last slalom of the season next weekend in Saalbach-Hinterglemm.
In her first race after a six-week injury break, Shiffrin won by more than a second ahead of Croatian Zrinka Ljutic and Swiss Michelle Gisin.
Lena Dürr from Munich missed her next podium place by just a hundredth of a second in fourth place.
The 32-year-old was the only athlete Shiffrin still had to fear.
However, Dürr's deficit in the slalom rankings was enormous.
Her German teammate Emma Aicher surprisingly finished seventh.
"It was so nice to ride again," said a visibly emotional Shiffrin, "I'm so proud of myself." After the first run, her lead was only narrow at 0.02 seconds, but in the second she drove like she was unleashed.
“I felt great,” she added.
Shiffrin had a serious fall on the Cortina d'Ampezzo descent at the end of January and had been sidelined ever since.
When she returned, she raced straight to the 96th World Cup success of her career.
However, she will no longer intervene in the fight for the overall World Cup victory this winter.
The big winner this season will most likely be Lara Gut-Behrami.
The Swiss has a great chance of winning all the other crystal balls.
After her third place in the giant slalom in Are, the overall victory in this discipline with a commanding 95 point lead over the day's winner Federica Brignone from Italy is virtually impossible to take away from her.
Gut-Behrami is also on the verge of winning the overall World Cup as well as the downhill and super-G classifications and could therefore win four crystal balls.
ara/dpa