Shiffrin and Vlhova split giant slalom win at Golden Fox

The 23-year-old American was almost half a second ahead of the Slovakian after the first run, but made some mistakes in the second to squander the advantage, with both finishing in 2:31.31.

Third place went to Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway, who finished 0.93 seconds behind the winners.

It was a win number five for Shiffrin at the Golden Fox and the third giant slalom win this season and second in a row.

With another victory, Shiffrin has increased her win total to twelve to remain in play for beating the absolute record in wins in a single season.

She is on pace to beat Vreni Schneider of Switzerland, who won a record 14 events in the 1988-89 season.

Shiffrin defended her win in last year's giant slalom event of the Golden Fox, which was hosted by the Kranjska Gora ski resort, and has the chance of repeating her double win from 2018 as she will also appear in Saturday's slalom.

"It was a fight in the second (run) and I almost lost it at the bottom, so it's always nice when you have this luck," Shiffrin was quoted by the French agency AFP.

Vlhova added that "we are always very close and today we can share first place, so it's good for everyone and I'm just happy."

The only Slovenians to make it to the second run were Meta Hrovat, who finished eighth (+2.39) for her best career result in Maribor, and the best Slovenian skier, the downhill specialist Ilka Štuhec, who was 20th (+3.75).

Hrovat, who earned her third top-10 career finish, while Štuhec was also relatively good given that it was her first giant slalom appearance in more than 22 months.

* Results of the World Cup giant slalom event in Maribor:
 1 Mikaela Shiffrin (USA)        2:31.31        1:14.28 1:17.03
   Petra Vlhova (SVK)            2:31.31        1:14.76 1:16.55
 3 Ragnhild Mowinckel (NOR)      2:32.24 +00.93 1:15.48 1:16.76
 4 Wendy Holdener (SUI)          2:32.60 +01.29 1:15.89 1:16.71
 5 Sara Hector (SWE)             2:32.81 +01.50 1:15.37 1:17.44
 6 Frida Hansdotter (SWE)        2:32.97 +01.66 1:15.74 1:17.23
 7 Marta Bassino (ITA)           2:33.02 +01.71 1:15.38 1:17.64
 8 Meta Hrovat (SLO)             2:33.70 +02.39 1:15.87 1:17.83
 9 Tessa Worley (FRA)            2:33.71 +02.40 1:14.86 1:18.85
10 Kristin Lysdahl (NOR)         2:33.93 +02.62 1:16.70 1:17.23
...
20 Ilka Štuhec (SLO)             2:35.06 +03.75 1:17.90 1:17.16

- Overall standings (after 25 of 37 events):
  1 Mikaela Shiffrin (USA)      1594
  2 Petra Vlhova (SVK)           998
  3 Wendy Holdener (SWI)         687
  4 Nicole Schmidhofer (AUT)     617
  5 Ragnhild Mowinckel (NOR)     589
  6 Viktoria Rebensburg (GER)    509
  7 Ilka Štuhec (SLO)            507
  8 Federica Brignone (ITA)      500
  9 Frida Hansdotter (SWE)       447
 10 Michelle Gisin (SWI)         442

- Giant slalom standings (after 6 events):
 1 Mikaela Shiffrin (USA)        455
 2 Tessa Worley (FRA)            374
 3 Petra Vlhova (SVK)            318
 4 Federica Brignone (ITA)       310
 5 Ragnhild Mowinckel (NOR)      259
 6 Viktoria Rebensburg (GER)     255
 7 Stephanie Brunner (AUT)       195
 8 Wendy Holdener (SUI)          194
 9 Marta Bassino (ITA)           164
10 Frida Hansdotter (SWE)        149