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| - American skier Mikaela Shiffrin picked up the 69th World Cup win of her career when she came from behind on the first run to win the slalom event in Jasna on Saturday. The 25-year-old trailed local skier Petra Vlhova by 0.27sec on the first run but produced a superb second run to edge the Slovakian by 0.34sec and claim her 45th World Cup slalom win, but only her second of the season. "That was a really big step," Shiffrin said. Wendy Holdener was third at 0.52sec. Vlhova still leads the discipline standings but is just 45 points ahead of Shiffrin. The newly-crowned Austrian world champion Katharina Liensberger lies third, a further 25 points back, after finishing fourth. Victory gave Shiffrin some revenge afer her streak of four straight slalom world titles ended at Cortina d'Ampezzo on February 22 when she was only third behind Liensberger and Vlhova. Shiffrin was second to Vlhova after the first run on Saturday, but was dominant on the second, skiing through the gates as if on a wire, taking every risk in pursuit of only her third World Cup victory in any discipline this season. She has won more in every season since taking four in her breakthrough campaign in 2012-13. "I kept pushing and that's the feeling I want to have," Shiffrin said. "Today it was good enough to win, sometimes it's not, but that's the feeling, that's the fight." "I felt it after my run even before Petra came down. I didn't know what she was going to do and maybe she can do something greater, but it was a really good fight for me and that's a pretty nice feeling to have now." Shiffrin's 45th slalom victory closed the gap on Swede Ingemar Stenmark, who holds the World Cup event record with 46. There are three more women's slaloms scheduled this season. Overall, Shiffrin, who turns 26 on March 13, trails only Stenmark who had 86 and American speedster Lindsey Vonn with 82. Shiffrin closed to 45 points behind Vlhova in the slalom standings but the Slovakian has a bigger target. She collected 80 points and is 107 points behind the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami, who did not compete in the slalom, in the battle for the big globe awarded to the overall champion. On Sunday, both will compete in the giant slalom. rg/smr/bsp/pb
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