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| - Italian Marta Bassino won the women's giant slalom in Courchevel on Saturday as triple overall World Cup champion Mikaela Shiffrin bemoaned a costly error after finishing fourth. Bassino, 24, added to her season-opening victory at Soelden in mid-October despite snowfall and testing fog in the French Alps. She increased her lead in the discipline standings and moving up to second in the overall . Shiffrin clipped two flags midway through the second run to finish 1.70sec off the pace after she was second and fifth in slaloms in her season bow at Levi in Finland in November. "My first run, I was more surviving. Some good turns, a good starting point with a pretty big mistake in the second run," she told US ski team website. "All in all, it was a pretty incredible day and not quite so stressful as Levi. "I felt like I could do some good skiing and the rest of it is just stuff I still need to pick up on, learn how to find the cleaner line and push through the bumps like the way some of these girls are doing. I know I can do it and it's just the matter of getting to that point again," she added. Bassino became the first woman since Viktoria Rebensburg in 2017 to win the opening two giant slaloms of the season. "I'm very happy with my second run. The course was very hard because of the snow and poor visibility. I hope for sun tomorrow," Bassino told a press conference. Sweden's Sara Hector was second 0.46 seconds behind with Slovakia's Petra Vlhova, who leads the overall, in third at 0.59sec. Shiffrin's preparations for the 2020-2021 campaign have been hit by the coronavirus as well as a back injury. A second giant slalom will take place in the resort in France on Sunday. rg/iwd/lp/pb
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