SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria — Lara Gut-Behrami secured the women’s World Cup overall and giant slalom titles Sunday after finishing 10th in the GS at the World Cup finals.
Federica Brignone, Gut-Behrami's remaining rival, won the race but couldn't overtake her unless Gut-Behrami finished outside the top 15 and didn't score points.
“It’s incredible, the GS has always been so important to me,” said Gut-Behrami, who secured her first giant slalom title even though she won the world title in the discipline in 2021.
“I was really nervous today, because I really wanted to win that. I skied so bad, I was just nervous, so I’m not surprised about that.”
Gut-Behrami avoided risks in both runs, posting only the eighth and 17th fastest times.
“What would you do? I learned that sometimes you just have to stay safe, try to cross the finish line,” she said. “Of course, not the best way to end the GS season talking about skiing, but is the best way to end the season with a globe.”
It’s the second overall championship for Gut-Behrami after winning it in 2016, the last year before Mikaela Shiffrin’s reign started.
A five-time overall champion, the American won the title the last two years and led the standings again this season, but dropped out of the race when she sustained a knee injury in a crash during a downhill in Italy in January.
Shiffrin ended her season Saturday after winning her second straight race after her six-week layoff.
Gut-Behrami passed Shiffrin after winning a GS in Andorra in February before crowning a consistent season in which she has had eight wins and finished outside the top six just four times.
Gut-Behrami, who turns 33 next month, is the oldest overall champion and only the second skier to win the sport’s biggest prize in her 30s, after fellow Swiss standout Vreni Schneider, who was 30 when she won the last or her three overall titles in 1994-95.
Gut-Behrami is a strong favorite to add the season titles in super-G and downhill next week, which would make her the fourth female skier to win four classifications in one season, after Lindsey Vonn, Tina Maze and, most recently, Shiffrin achieved feat.
Brignone dominated the season-ending event, winning it by a massive 1.36 seconds from Alice Robinson of New Zealand. Thea Louise Stjernesund of Norway was 1.67 behind in third.
It was the Italian’s 12th career GS win and 27th overall.
Haugan wins men’s slalom
SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria — Timon Haugan held on to his first-run lead to win the men’s slalom at the World Cup finals Sunday, giving the Norwegian ski team its first victory of the season.
Haugan beat Manuel Feller, the winner of the discipline season title, by 0.40 seconds after the Austrian improved from fourth after the first run. Linus Strasser of Germany, who was second, dropped to third, 0.44 behind.
Haugan had earned three career podiums in slalom before, most recently in Schladming in January, but was yet to win a World Cup event.
Immediately after the race, his Norwegian teammates quickly entered the finish area and pulled Haugan down in excitement, then lifted him onto their shoulders.
The Norwegian team has achieved 16 top-three results this season, but only managed to win one competition across all disciplines.
A week after securing the discipline title, Feller received the first globe of his career.
“Incredible, especially in front of a crowd like that at home, you can’t write a book better (than) that,” Feller said.
He became the oldest joint winner of the slalom season title, following fellow Austrian Reinfried Herbst in 2010 and Croatian standout Ivica Kostelic in 2011 who were also 31 when they won the globe.
After displaying his trophy, Feller knelt down and wrote a few letters in the snow.
“Me and my friends, we lost a friend one-and-a-half years ago. I just wanted to share a little moment with him,” the Austrian said.
Feller clinched the title when the second to last slalom in Slovenia was called off due to bad weather, leaving runner-up Strasser without enough races to make up the gap of 169 points in the discipline standings.
Feller takes over from last year’s globe winner, Lucas Braathen, who sat out the current campaign following a dispute with the Norwegian ski federation but has announced his return for next season competing for Brazil, his mother’s home nation.
The men continue the World Cup finals with the super-G on Friday.
