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| - Mikaela Shiffrin said she was almost at her giant slalom peak after she won her first World Cup event since January on Monday, seeing off reigning champion Federica Brignone and Tessa Worley to win the event at Courchevel. Shiffrin finished 0.82sec ahead of Italian Brignone and more than a second in front of France's Worley after the two runs in France. "Today was a very good slope to push up. Some of my skiing was the best I ever had in giant slalom," Shiffrin said. "It's something special to run with this group of women. We fight every time, but when we cross the finish line, we can be happy for each other," she added. It was the American's 67th World Cup victory and puts her in third place on the all-time list alongside Austria's Marcel Hirscher. The 25-year-old is still behind compatriot Lindsey Vonn's 82 World Cup wins and Swede Ingemar Stenmark, who racked up 86 victories during his career. Shiffrin has had a difficult 2020 which was marked by the sudden death of her father in February, which led to her missing eight races, and the coronavirus pandemic which then stopped her from returning before that campaign's climax. That allowed Brignone to become the first Italian woman to ever claim the overall World Cup title. Shiffrin then had to delay her return to the piste until slalom races in Levi, Finland, last month after picking up a back injury in October. She placed second and fifth in those races. She finished fourth in the first giant slalom at Courchevel on Saturday, before dominating Monday's race, which was originally scheduled to be run on Sunday but was delayed due to heavy snowfall. td/gj/iwd
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