The slate begins Nov. 28-29 with men’s super-G and giant slalom at Copper Mountain, while the women race giant slalom and slalom that weekend in Killington, Vt.

Beaver Creek will host men’s races Dec. 3-6 with two downhills, a super-G and a giant slalom, followed by three women’s races — two downhills and a super-G — Dec. 11-13. Beaver Creek has been a regular stop for the men since 1997, but the women have only raced World Cup there in 2011, 2013 and 2024. The women also raced there at the 2015 world championships.

Vail native Mikaela Shiffrin, a six-time World Cup overall champion, hasn’t raced downhill since January of 2024 and has raced only three super-Gs this past season, but she is expected to enter select super-Gs in 2026-27.

She won 10 races this past season, all of them slalom, including the Olympic gold medal. She had only two other podiums, a second-place slalom finish and a third-place giant slalom result.

The U.S. will also host the World Cup Finals for just the third time since 2000, with men and women racing all four disciplines at Sun Valley, Idaho, March 20-25. Aspen hosted the prestigious season-ending event in 2017 and Sun Valley hosted n 2025.

McNeirney was one of about 30 middle school and high school girls from Colorado’s Arkansas River Valley who got to hear Shiffrin speak about ski racing and pursuing life with passion. Then they skied with the Vail Valley product, who became the United States’ first three-time Olympic gold medalist in skiing at the Milan-Cortina Olympics.

“I’ve never been more excited in my life,” McNeirney said. “It����ap just really, really cool that we get to meet someone who is so famous and so generous. It makes my heart go really, really fast. The fact that she’s been giving us stories about her home life, you can tell she’s a good person and she wants to laugh with us. She’s not just all about the fame and the money from winning the Olympics.”

The girls from Chaffee and Fremont counties were there through elevateHer, a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower young women through outdoor adventure. Not all were ski racers, but McNeirney is. So is Rose Lenth, another eighth grader who wore glitter for the occasion.

“She’s one of my heroes,” Lenth said of Shiffrin. “I love her. I’m so impressed every time I watch her ski. She’s like incredible, and it����ap inspiring that she’s from Colorado, knowing that you can really do anything.”

In a Q&A before skiing, the girls asked Shiffrin how she got started, what she thinks about in the starting gate before a race and what she wanted to be when she was growing up. “A rainbow horse,” she said in all seriousness, cracking up the room. Then she asked them the same question. Among the answers were nurse, veterinarian, paleontologist and baker.

“It����ap so cool to see all of these passions in the room that are completely different, but they still get to come together and enjoy snowsports,” Shiffrin said in a quiet moment away from the group before they headed out to ski. “That����ap the most beautiful example of being in the mountains — skiing and snowboarding, these sports that we do — you’re allowed to be an individual and still share a passion, celebrating everybody’s uniqueness, all their different passions and lifestyles. It����ap healthy to get outdoors, to be in the open air and be moving your body, no matter what you want to do (for a living).”

America’s ski racing superstar ‘not ready to be done yet’

Since returning from Europe two weeks ago following the conclusion of the World Cup season, , appeared with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN, served as “guest photographer” at a Brooklyn Nets game and did several Gen Z digital media shows.

Her home is in Edwards, but she doesn’t get to spend much time there. In a few days, she will leave for a ski camp at Mammoth Mountain in California. There isn’t much of an offseason for ski racers. They train where the snow is, which includes trips to South America in the summer.

Three years ago, she broke the record for World Cup wins, which had stood at 86 for 24 years and was long considered unbeatable. Since then, she has added another 23 wins to her record. Having turned 31 last month, she’s not old for a ski racer, but she’s not young, either.

“My body feels the impact of the sport over time,” she said. “If you consulted my spine, skiing three days in a row now is hard. I used to be able to ski six days in a row with really high volume every single day. I don’t have the capacity to do that anymore.”

She is starting to think about life after skiing, whatever that transition might look like.

“What I know is that I’m not ready to be done yet,” she said in a conference room while the girls from elevateHer donned their ski gear. “I also feel different at this time this year than I have in any other year. I want to be able to make the time to connect with the snowsports community in a different level.”

The appearance at Copper was part of that.

“What I want to do is maybe explore these things while being able to stay fully committed to what I am doing in the sport,” she said. “That might mean less racing.”

Since 2024, Shiffrin has been engaged to Norwegian ski racing star Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who won the World Cup overall title in 2020. They haven’t set a date, but that may come now that the Cortina Olympics are behind her. Her older brother, Taylor, who raced for the University of Denver, became a father a few days ago. She’s looking forward to motherhood.

“That����ap something I want,” Shiffrin said. “I cannot imagine having a child right now, absolutely not, but I also can imagine that desire coming pretty fast and pretty suddenly. Now that I’ve seen their baby … I know Aleks wants that, too, but we have not been able to stay in the same place for more than a month at any point in our relationship. Can you imagine? It����ap like, ‘We haven’t seen each other really for six months, maybe a day here and there,’ and then it����ap like, ‘Let����ap have a baby.’ It doesn’t work that way.

“It gets a little bit more complicated when you think, ‘I’m 31.’ Time’s not slowing down.”

She clearly had an impact on the girls she encountered on Saturday.

“She’s compassionate and thinks about other people,” eighth-grader Anabelle Soltz said after they skied with her. “Spending time with her, you can tell how much she cares about other people and the respect she has for her sport. It’s amazing to be around. It’s powerful to see people like that. It uplifts.”

Other aspects of Miller’s amazing life are less well known. As he embarked on his film career, for example, the native of Hollywood, Calif., took inspiration from Walt Disney, who had lived on Miller’s newspaper route during the depression when Warren was 11 years old. And, while serving in the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II, his submarine chaser sank near Guadalcanal during a tropical cyclone, but he led the crew’s evacuation to a rescue ship.

Those fascinating nuggets and many others are captured in a new exhibit, “Warren Miller: Freedom Found,” at the Colorado Snowsports Museum in Vail. The collection was unveiled last week with artifacts, informational panels, artwork, posters and a pamphlet with more details from his pioneering career. The museum, where admission is free, is located at the Vail Transportation Center in Vail Village.

For much of his career, Miller lived in Hermosa Beach, Calif., where he enjoyed surfing, but he lived in Vail for about a dozen years and wrote a regular column for the Vail Daily. That column was eventually syndicated to dozens of other newspapers.

“He was the first filmmaker that created the stoke film genre,” said Jen Mason, executive director of the , which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. “It was the beginning of winter, and it got you excited to go skiing, all over the country. (The exhibit) really is important to the entire ski industry in the United States.

“But for us in Colorado and in Vail,” Mason added, “the fact that he lived in Vail and he was such a part of our community, it����ap so important that we’re finally recognizing his contribution.”

Maybe the most treasured piece in the exhibit is a 16-millimeter three-lens turret Bell & Howell movie camera, circa 1947. Mason said they believe it was the first or second camera he used in making ski films. The first film, called “Deep and Light,” came out in 1950.

Other artifacts include Miller’s ski climbing skins (dated 1947) and a ski waxing kit, a leather ski boot circa 1950, a darkroom timer, film reels and five lithographs of Miller’s artwork.

Miller sold the company to his son Kurt in 1988, but he continued to narrate films until 2004. He died in 2018 and is a member of the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame. The pamphlet for the Vail exhibit includes a QR code linked to .

“Warren brought the thrill of skiing to the masses with humor, heart and breathtaking cinematography,” narrator Jonny Mosely explains in the hall of fame video, “turning winter sports into a shared cultural experience.”

Colorado ski filmmaker Chris Anthony appeared in many of Miller’s films and served as master of ceremonies on Miller film tours for many years, having grown up as a fan in Denver.

“My first encounter was at City Park at the Phipps Auditorium, where Warren (brought) his film every fall,” Anthony said this week from Kitzbuehel, Austria, where he is working on multiple ski-related projects. “He would do everything — run it, narrate it, control the music and even the lights from the side of the stage at a little desk. There was always an intermission when they would change reels, and he would have kids on stage. I got to be one of those kids.”

Years later, Anthony got a phone call from Warren Miller Entertainment, inviting him to ski in a scene that would be shot in France.

“That started my 28-year run of skiing in the annual Warren Miller film, as well as other Warren Miller Productions,” Anthony said. “In my honest opinion, Warren Miller is the most influential person to have impacted the ski industry in the United States. There really has never been a proper tribute or monument built to him, so I am happy that the Colorado Snowsports Museum has put together this exhibit. The life that Warren Miller led was beyond amazing.”

Miller’s Hall of Fame video includes a tribute to the snowsports museum now celebrating its golden anniversary.

“The museum, in my opinion, rightly belongs here, and with the current state of the art for ski equipment, it’s really revealing to come in here and see what it used to be like,” Miller said in that video. “Anybody who comes to this part of the world who is the least bit interested in skiing and doesn’t stop by — see what they have on display so they can learn more about their heritage, and what a wonderful time they have because of these pioneers — I think they’re really missing a bet.”

Shiffrin needed only to finish in the top 15 of a giant slalom and the American standout secured that before Aicher even began her second run.

Shiffrin finished 11th and Aicher — who needed to win the race and hope that Shiffrin finished 16th or worse to clinch her first title — finished 12th.

“It����ap quite emotional,” Shiffrin said. “This thing sums up a whole season of work and fighting with the whole team and I have to say to Emma that her skiing has been just outstanding and today it was just so cool to watch her, especially on the first run.

“I think the outcome of this day is that she can do this. And I think that����ap the coolest thing about ski racing — that anything is possible,” Shiffrin added.

Shiffrin was only 17th after the first run but came down in first position in the second and then clinched it when the next two starters placed behind her.

After being told it was over, Shiffrin dropped to her knees, put her right hand to her face and appeared to be in tears as she asked her team, “Are you sure?”

Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Shiffrin’s fiancee and the 2020 overall champion, was with her.

“I’m really, really grateful to be in this position now,” Shiffrin said. “It����ap really a big, big emotion but I’m also grateful for the fight.”

Shiffrin matches Moser-Pröll

The 31-year-old Shiffrin matched , who won her six titles in the 1970s.

Moser-Pröll won five straight titles from 1971-75 then a sixth in 1979. Shiffrin won three straight from 2017-19, then back-to-back titles in 2022 and ’23.

is third on the women’s list with four overall titles.

Marcel Hirscher leads the men’s list with eight overall titles.

Grenier claims 3rd career victory

Valerie Grenier of Canada added to her first-run advantage to claim her third career World Cup victory. Mina Fuerst Holtmann of Norway finished second on home snow, 0.43 behind, and discipline champion Julia Scheib was third, 0.57 behind.

Shiffrin was 2.02 behind and Aicher was 2.04 behind after a major mistake early in her second run dropped her down from third after the opening leg.

Shiffrin finished 87 points ahead of Aicher — 1,410 points to 1,323 points.

It����ap been another stellar season for Shiffrin, who claimed the by dominating the slalom at last month’s Milan Cortina Games.

Shiffrin also won nine of the 10 World Cup slaloms this season and has a record 110 victories across all disciplines — by far the most in the World Cup by any man or woman. Ingemar Stenmark is next best with 86 wins in the 1970s and ’80s.

Aicher is a rare all-arounder

The 22-year-old Aicher has never won a World Cup giant slalom and has a career-best finish of fourth, achieved this month at Are, Sweden. The only current skier who competes in every event, Aicher was aiming for her first overall title after taking home two silver medals — in downhill and team combined — from Milan Cortina.

Aicher, who has a Swedish mother and a German father and grew up mostly in Sweden, won three World Cup races this season — one downhill and two super-Gs.

in the penultimate giant slalom of the season; while Olympic GS champion Federica Brignone shut her season down early.

US wins Nations Cup

Shiffrin’s results and Vonn’s domination in downhill until her helped the U.S. women secure the Nations Cup title for the first time since 1982 by finishing ahead of perennial winner Austria.

With , Paula Moltzan and Jacqueline Wiles also registering podium finishes, the U.S. produced 11 World Cup victories and 27 podium finishes with 16 different athletes contributing points throughout the season.

“This achievement is a testament to the strength of this team from top to bottom,” said U.S. Ski & Snowboard chief of sport Anouk Patty. “Everyone played a role in this success.”

Tamara McKinney, Cindy Nelson and Christin Cooper led the U.S. to the 1982 title.

Shiffrin won yet another slalom on Tuesday — her ninth in 10 World Cup starts this season — by a massive margin of 1.32 seconds ahead of Wendy Holdener.

That earned Olympic champion Shiffrin 100 points in the race for the World Cup overall title but Aicher’s impressive third place, awarded 60 points, kept the American’s lead in the standings below 100.

Shiffrin will start the season-ending giant slalom on Wednesday 85 ahead of the German who must win to deny the American superstar a women’s record-tying sixth overall title in her stellar career.

“It����ap weird to say battle with somebody who I consider a friend,” Shiffrin said of Aicher. “These last races have been super exciting for me to be part of it.

“I’m so excited to watch what she does in the future but for now we have one more race to decide this one.”

The odds are stacked in Shiffrin’s favor.

Aicher has never won a World Cup giant slalom and has a career-best finish of fourth, achieved this month at Are, Sweden.

Shiffrin, the , can seal the overall title herself with a top-15 result on Wednesday that will earn at least 16 points.

Swiss skier Holdener gave an assist on Tuesday by taking second place ahead of Aicher by just 0.04. That kept 20 World Cup points off Aicher’s tally.

Shiffrin’s 110th career race win on Tuesday is already by far the most in the World Cup by any man or woman. Ingmar Stenmark is next best with 86 wins in the 1970s and ’80s.

A sixth overall title on Wednesday would match for the women’s World Cup record.

Moser-Pröll won five straight titles from 1971-75 then a sixth in 1979. Shiffrin won three straight from 2017-19, then back-to-back titles in 2022 and ’23.

Shiffrin did set a women’s World Cup record on Tuesday: Nine wins in a discipline is a single-season best in 60 years on the circuit. She long ago sealed her record ninth career slalom season title.

“This season has been so exciting, quite like a whirlwind,” she said. “I’m grateful for it.”

The sun is shining on Shiffrin as the season sets with warm temperatures of 7 degrees Celsius (44 F) and softening snow that barely slowed the greatest slalom skier.

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Probably a combination of celebration and relief, as her main rival in the overall standings was second to keep the pressure on the American star.

Racing in sunny conditions, Shiffrin dominated the last race before the World Cup Finals to beat Emma Aicher of Germany by 0.94 seconds, with Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener a second off the pace in third.

“That was really amazing. I was like pretty nervous, pretty excited, but in the end it was challenging to ski,” Shiffrin said. “I pushed really hard. Quite happy to get to the finish, too.”

Second place marked the career-best result in slalom for Aicher, who in recent weeks has become a threat to Shiffrin’s quest for what would be the American’s record-equaling sixth overall title.

With four events remaining – one race in each discipline – the German all-rounder trails leader Shiffrin by 140 points, with each race win worth 100 points.

“Just the fact that I can stand here and say that I’m in contention is huge for me. I am very proud of that,” said the 22-year-old Aicher, who finished 15th in the overall standings last season.

“But Shiffrin is still far ahead of me, so it����ap going to be very hard,” the German added.

Shiffrin had lost five points of her advantage when she finished one spot behind Aicher in fifth in , before gaining 20 on her rival following Sunday’s win.

The American called her battle with Aicher for the big crystal globe “exciting.”

“There is still some pushing to do. Emma is skiing just incredible, in every event. So, I try to stay in fighting spirit,” said Shiffrin, who could match the women’s record of six overall titles set by Austrian standout Annemarie Moser-Pröll in the 1970s.

“It����ap the kind of thing that motivates me when we are off the slopes and to keep going with the mood and the attitude. But whenever I’m in the start gate, I just try to have the best skiing I can do.”

Focusing on slalom and GS this season, and two starts in super-G, Shiffrin has amassed 1,286 points in total, including 880 from the slalom discipline. She already locked up in January, weeks before the Olympics.

Aicher has gathered nine podiums this season across slalom, super-G and downhill, with three wins from the speed events.

“You can see she is quite calm and collected,” Shiffrin said about Aicher. “To be honest, she really deserves that. She has been the top, top contender across all the disciplines, that is just incredible to see someone doing this, because she is actually the only one.”

Shiffrin also won eight slaloms in the 2018-19 season, a feat previously only achieved by Croatian great Janica Kostelic 25 years ago.

Shiffrin raised her career tally to 72 wins in slalom and 109 overall — both are World Cup records.

Åre has been a good setting in Shiffrin’s career.

She won a record seven slaloms in the Swedish resort, including her first career victory in December 2012. She also took the world titles in both slalom and super-G there in 2019.

No other skier ever won more than two World Cup races in Åre.

The World Cup Finals in Norway for both women and men open with the speed events in Kvitfjell next weekend, followed by the GS and slalom in Hafjell on March 24-25.

is attempting to recover from in time to try and win an Olympic medal next weekend at age 41.

One of the biggest reasons she came back in the first place after nearly six years of retirement — and what����ap motivating her now — is that she wants to return to the town hosting women’s races at the .

Vonn is the queen of Cortina d’Ampezzo, the resort known as “the Queen of the Dolomites.” Her memories there go back nearly a quarter century.

“I don’t think I would have tried this comeback if the Olympics weren’t in Cortina,” Vonn said before her injury. “If it had been anywhere else, I would probably say it����ap not worth it. But for me, there’s something special about Cortina that always pulls me back and it����ap pulled me back one last time.”

Vonn recently looked back at her career in Cortina during an interview with The Associated Press:

An unfinished debut nearly a quarter century ago

Vonn’s first race in Cortina was back in January 2002, before some of her current competitors were even born.

Approaching what would be her first Olympics a month later at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, Vonn’s debut in Cortina was a World Cup super-G and she didn’t finish it.

“I was skiing pretty well at the time, but I wasn’t really putting everything together,” she said. “And I remember in Cortina being nervous about making the Olympic team. I don’t think I skied badly. But I didn’t finish, so at that point I definitely hadn’t been able to put all the pieces together.”

Demoted to skiing’s minor leagues

Vonn’s Cortina record doesn’t have an entry for 2003.

Why?

“Oh, I got demoted,” she said. “I was sent back to Europa Cup. They definitely put all their weight behind Julia (Mancuso),” referring to skiing’s “minor leagues” circuit and her former teammate.

“At that point I hadn’t 100% committed to speed. … I had been racing more tech races than I had speed, so I was still kind of not sure where I fit in and I was still super skinny at the time and I was just trying to figure everything out.”

Vonn’s demotion motivated her to hire a physical trainer and get into better shape.

A memorable video session with a trusted coach

Turns out, it didn’t take Vonn very long “to figure everything out.”

When she returned to Cortina in 2004, Vonn recorded the first World Cup podium result of her career.

In the first of two downhills that weekend, Vonn finished fifth in what was her first time racing downhill on the Olympia delle Tofane course.

The next day, she finished third in a race won by then Olympic champion Carole Montillet. Lindsey Kildow, as she was still referred to, placed 0.24 seconds behind and only one hundredth behind second-place finisher Renate Goetschl.

“Cortina was really the turning point for me. It����ap really where I solidified my mental routine, my physical routine,” Vonn said. “That was the first time I really felt confident enough in what I was doing that I belonged on the podium.”

It was a video session with Alex Hoedlmoser — who has coached Vonn since she was 16 and still coaches her with the U.S. team now — after Vonn’s fifth-place finish that made something click with her.

“He’s like, ‘See, that wasn’t that hard, was it?’ And I was like, ‘No, I can do this.’ And he’s like, ‘Yes, you can,’” Vonn said. “I remember it very vividly.

“And then when I did get on the podium, it was such a great feeling, and I remember calling my dad, and my grandparents, and my mom, and crying, and it was a really special moment, and really a turning point for me in my career, where I really believed that I could be amongst the best in the world.”

A comfort zone she shares only with Lake Louise

Vonn didn’t win her first race in Cortina until 2008. But ever since that 2004 podium, she has felt comfortable there.

“It����ap kind of like Lake Louise where I don’t have to think too much about it,” Vonn said, referring to the Canadian resort where she won 18 races. “I know where to go, I know what it takes, and it����ap a very special place for me and no matter how many wins or losses I’ve had there, that won’t change.”

A family reunion for a record-breaking weekend

While , what Vonn likes to remember about when she broke Annemarie Moser-Pröll’s 35-year-old World Cup wins record in 2015 with victory No. 63, in Cortina, is that she was surrounded by her family.

“I have a big family and they really haven’t come to hardly any World Cups in my career, unfortunately,” Vonn said. “That was a really special weekend. My dad and his wife and my mom and her husband, my sister Laura, were there. It was really special. I don’t have many pictures or memories of my family being at World Cup races. We have the Olympics but even then it����ap not my whole family. So I really cherished that weekend.”

Vonn’s younger sister, Laura, lived in Florence then and the siblings met up annually in Cortina. Vonn’s mother, Lindy, died in 2022 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“It����ap nice,” Vonn said of the 2015 race, “to be able to look back and remind myself of those memories.”

Tears, pain and retirement in 2019. And now back again

It hasn’t been just joy for Vonn in Cortina.

There were also tears when , realizing that she would soon have to retire due to the pain in her knees and joints.

After getting a partial joint replacement in her right knee, Vonn returned to racing last season and now she’s heading back to Cortina aiming to add some new entries to her career record there — if her left knee allows it.

The American star might have to share her record soon, though, as teammate has eight downhill titles and currently holds a commanding lead in those standings in her second season back from her initial retirement in 2019.

On the men’s side, Ingemar Stenmark won the slalom globe and Marcel Hirscher the overall title eight times each.

Shiffrin dominated the last slalom before the Milan Cortina Games on Sunday, securing top spot in the discipline standings with two races to spare.

Shiffrin won both runs to beat runner-up Camille Rast, the world champion from Switzerland, by 1.67 seconds. The rest of the field, led by Germany’s Emma Aicher, trailed by more than two seconds.

Shiffrin’s victory came a day after she earned her in two years.

But the American was reluctant to read too much into those results and how they may translate to her form for the Olympics, where she plans to start in slalom, GS, and the team combined.

“At the Olympics is a totally different challenge,” said Shiffrin, who won slalom gold in 2014 and GS gold four years later, but didn’t finish any of her individual events in 2022.

“I’ve had great Olympics, I’ve had tough Olympics, I try to go in with an open mind, good spirit, trusting my team,” she added. “We’re coming in with strong athletes, so it����ap time to enjoy that.”

This weekend’s races took place at the Czech venue of Shiffrin’s World Cup debut at age 15 in March 2011.

“It just feels amazing to be here. I feel like when I was 15 years old still, like, I don’t know, just love skiing. I just love skiing. That����ap the best feeling to be here,” Shiffrin said.

Clinching the slalom globe and setting yet another record was not on her mind during the race, the American said.

“It����ap actually hard to think about that today because there was so much to think about on the race course,” Shiffrin said. “So now it����ap like a nice surprise.”

Shiffrin won her first slalom globe at age 18 in March 2013, her most recent one came two years ago. Last season, she led the standings but then missed two months of racing following a and Zrinka Ljutic of Croatia took the title.

Shiffrin’s 71 career race wins in slalom and 108 overall are both records for men and women.

Shiffrin’s seven wins from eight slaloms give her an insurmountable 288-point lead over second-placed Rast in the season standings. There are two more slaloms scheduled after the Olympics, with a race win worth 100 points.

Rast triumphed in this season, in Slovenia three weeks ago.

The women’s World Cup continues in Crans-Montana with a downhill and a super-G next weekend, the last races before the Olympics.

Shiffrin, who has now won six of the seven slaloms in the Olympic season, added to her first-run advantage to finish 0.41 seconds ahead of Moltzan.

Katharina Truppe of Austria finished third before her home fans, 0.65 behind, while Camille Rast — the Swiss racer who recently beat Shiffrin — came fourth, 0.67 behind.

Now there’s only one more slalom before the Milan Cortina Winter Games open on Feb. 6.

Shiffrin earned her record-extending 107th World Cup win, 70th in slalom and sixth in Flachau.

Moltzan, who is still seeking her first victory, earned the fourth second-place finish of her career and her third podium result of the season. She also took bronze in giant slalom at last season’s world championships.

Rast ended Shiffrin’s six-race winning streak in World Cup slaloms Sunday, beating the American star by 0.14 seconds after clocking the fastest time in both runs at an event in Slovenia.

Rast, who is the slalom world champion, also led Shiffrin after the first leg but the American made up more than half a second on a deteriorating course to narrowly take the win.

On Sunday, though, Rast held on to her first-run lead for her fourth career win, and third in slalom, before being hugged by Shiffrin in the finish area.

“Her skiing is so strong, and it����ap been building, building, building,” Shiffrin said about Rast. “The last races she had some mistakes that cost time. And today, how I saw her ski the first run, ah, I had to go 120% in order to have a shot. So, it was a big, big, amazing day for her.”

Shiffrin was still satisfied with her own skiing and celebrated by pumping her fist after finishing her final run, when Rast was yet to start.

“I had a really specific goal for my skiing for the second (run), a little bit technical thing, and I felt like I really accomplished that,” Shiffrin said.

“This was the hardest I could push. I pushed so hard, it was like a small mistake here and a small mistake there and I don’t think that cost time. That was just how hard I was trying. I could feel these turns that I wanted to feel.”

Sunday’s victory came one day after Rast earned her maiden giant slalom win on the same hill and that victory to the victims of the fire at a bar in Crans-Montana near her hometown of Vétroz.

“I gave everything I had this weekend. Double on the same weekend is quite amazing. I’m so happy,” Rast said, adding that “a lot of energy” was key to her triumph.

“It was a little bit a battle, but I had a lot of fun. And the slope, wow, was amazing, The preparation was top.”

The duo was far ahead of the rest of the field, with Rast����ap teammate Wendy Holdener trailing by a massive 1.83 seconds in third for her first podium result in nearly a year.

Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Moltzan in fourth was the only other racer finishing less than two seconds off the pace.

Shiffrin, who took slalom gold at the 2014 Olympics and holds four world titles in the discipline, won the final race of last season before taking the first five slaloms in the current campaign and raise her career tally to 69 wins in slalom and 106 overall, both World Cup records.

Defending slalom World Cup winner Zrinka Ljutic of Croatia didn’t finish for the fourth time in six races this season.

Italian prodigy Lara Colturi, competing for Albania, lost her balance and fell on the first run on a course set by her father and coach, Alessandro Colturi. She was on the podium in four of the previous five slaloms this season.

The next slalom is a night race on Jan. 13 in Flachau, where Rast triumphed last year and Shiffrin won five times in the past. The last slalom before the Olympics is on Jan. 25 in Czechia.

A downhill and a super-G are scheduled next weekend in another Austrian resort, Zauchensee.

There were no men’s World Cup races this weekend.

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