Mikaela Shiffrin secured a spot on the podium at a World Cup giant slalom event after a two-year hiatus on Saturday in Spindleruv Mlyn, Czechia. She finished in third place in the final GS race before the Milan Cortina Olympics. The race was won by Sara Hector, the defending Olympic champion, who maintained her lead from the first run to claim her first victory since January 2025.
Expressing her joy in a post-race interview, the Swedish winner acknowledged the tough competition from other strong female skiers. Shiffrin, the 2018 Olympic GS gold medalist, followed closely behind Hector by 0.23 seconds, sharing the podium with her American teammate Paula Moltzan, who was 0.18 seconds behind the lead.
Canada’s Britt Richardson delivered a commendable performance, finishing in ninth place with a time of 2:27.05, 3.19 seconds behind Hector’s winning time. Shiffrin, holding the record for the most career World Cup GS victories among women with 22 wins, had not achieved a top-three result in the discipline for 11 events since finishing as a runner-up in a race in Slovakia in January 2024.
After a series of setbacks, including a crash in a downhill event preceding the Olympics and sustaining injuries, Shiffrin returned stronger this season with three fourth-place finishes before reclaiming a podium spot on Saturday, just three weeks before the upcoming Olympic race in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Teammate Moltzan, aiming for her first career win, secured her third podium finish of the season, leading a notable performance by the U.S. team, with Nina O’Brien placing fifth and AJ Hurt coming in eighth. In the initial run, Hector narrowly beat Switzerland’s Camille Rast by 0.02 seconds, with Austria’s Julia Scheib, the GS rankings leader, finishing third, 0.26 seconds behind.
The absence of overall World Cup champion Federica Brignone and her Italian teammate Sofia Goggia was noted, as they skipped the event in Czechia to prepare for speed racing in Switzerland ahead of the home Olympics. The weekend event in Czechia will be followed by a slalom race on the same hill scheduled for Sunday.