SOELDEN, Austria :Austria’s Julia Scheib sparked a home party as she kicked off the new Alpine Skiing World Cup season by winning the women’s giant slalom on the Rettenbach Glacier on Saturday.
Scheib was quickest after the first run from American Paula Moltzan and held her nerve to consolidate her lead in the second in front of a noisy Austrian crowd.
It was the 27-year-old Scheib’s first World Cup victory and she became the first Austrian woman to win a World Cup giant slalom for nine years.
Moltzan, 31, almost crashed in her second run but recovered to hold on to take second place, 0.58 seconds behind Scheib.
Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami, beginning her last World Cup season, was 1.11 seconds slower to complete the podium.
American great Mikaela Shiffrin could not add to her all-time record 101 World Cup wins but produced a strong performance to move up from sixth on her first run to fourth overall.
“It feels so good. Last year I was not so happy with fifth, but today I’m so excited for the start of the season,” the 30-year-old, who will be looking to add to her two Olympic gold medals in Cortina next year, said.
“I feel there’s a lot of room for improvement but this is where I am. The second run I did better than expected.”
Gut-Behrami, twice World Cup overall champion who will move to London next year with her husband, former Switzerland soccer player Valon Behrami, said the wind had been tricky.
“In the first run it was a little bit like windsurfing,” she said.
The men’s giant slalom is on Sunday.
