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Canada’s Valérie Grenier wrapped up the World Cup alpine skiing season with a win in the giant slalom on Wednesday in Lillehammer, Norway.
Grenier, of St-Isidore, Ont., finished with a two-run combined time of two minutes, 16.79 seconds to capture gold. Norway’s Mina Fuerst Holtmann (2:17.22) took silver while Austria’s Julia Scheib (2:17.36) rounded out the podium in bronze-medal position
It’s marks the third World Cup victory of Grenier’s career.
Valérie Grenier of St-Isidore, Ont., won gold in the final women’s giant slalom race of the World Cup season in Lillehammer, Norway. It’s Grenier’s third career World Cup victory, all of them coming in the giant slalom discipline.
Meanwhile, American Mikaela Shiffrin secured a record-tying sixth women’s overall World Cup skiing title by holding off a challenge from emerging German rival Emma Aicher.
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.
Aicher needed to win the race and hope that Shiffrin finished 16th or worse to clinch her first title.
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.
The 31-year-old Shiffrin matched Austrian downhill great Annemarie Moser-Pröll,, 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.
Lindsey Vonn is third on the women’s list with four overall titles.
Marcel Hirscher leads the men’s list with eight overall titles.
It’s been another stellar season for Shiffrin, who claimed the third Olympic gold of her career by dominating the slalom at the 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.
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 last month’s Milan Cortina Olympics.
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.
Julia Scheib already clinched the discipline title in the penultimate GS of the season; while Olympic GS champion Federica Brignone shut her season down early.
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