Vlhova wins GS in front of Czech and Slovak crowd

Giant slalom World Champion Petra Vlhova of Slovakia showed that her second discipline skills are just getting started by winning her second consecutive World Cup race in the event at Audi FIS Ski World Cup Spindleruv Mlyn (CZE). To the absolute delight of more than 8,600 Czech and Slovak fans on site, she skied the fastest first run of the day and maintained her lead for the win despite challenging snow conditions and light snowfall in the second run.

Viktoria Rebenburg of Germany gave close chase with the second-fastest runs each time, but she ultimately finished just 0.11 seconds shy of Vlhova. The runner-up also at the World Championships, Rebensburg also has three second-place GS finishes on the World Cup this season.

American Mikaela Shiffrin skied the fastest second run to move onto the podium in third after sitting fourth and 1.33 seconds back from the lead following first run. The second-run effort was commendable but left her 0.60 seconds behind Vlhova due to the deficit from earlier in the day. She will look to put together two hard-charging runs in the slalom on Saturday.

Vlhova's win kept the World Cup giant slalom discipline globe undecided heading into Finals next week in Soldeu (AND) where Shiffrin holds a 97-point lead in the campaign entering the last race of the season.

The ladies will contest a slalom in Spindleruv Mlyn on Saturday with runs starting at 10:30 and 13:30 CET.

See complete results from today's race here.