Federica Brignone would claim her second GS victory of the season in a dead heat with World Champion Petra Vlhova who grabbed her first win of the winter in the discipline. Chasing ever so closely behind was Overall leader Mikaela Shiffrin, who charged hard in the second run to move onto the podium by the narrowest possible margin – just 0.01 seconds from the win. "I just saw that I was the same time as Petra and we were one-hundredth before Mikaela, so that was a close one and a tight one", an exuberant Brignone said following the win. "It’s amazing – the crowd – can you listen and can you see? Today is crazy. I’m just so happy, I’m exploded. I can’t say what I feel right now". Federica Brignone is the only one to have won two races this season even though today's competition had to share it with Petra who for the first time this year gains 100 points in the discipline. Federica Brignone follows her mother, former Italian skier Maria Rosa Quario, who won the slalom in the Italian Alpine resort back in 1983. She had posted the fasted time in the first run, but despite the fifth-fastest time in the second held on to match 24-year-old slalom specialist Vlhova.
Petra Vlhova earned her third victory this month after those two slalom races. Brignone leads the GS season standings by 61 points over Shiffrin, seeking to become the sixth different woman to win that discipline title in the last six years. There are four more GS races left this season.
Mikaela Shiffrin came .01 shy of making it a three-way tie for a World Cup giant slalom win on Saturday, confirming GS has been the most up-for-grabs discipline for either gender in recent years.
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