Petra Vlhova scorches to Are giant slalom victory from Marta Bassino and Mikaela Shiffrin

Petra Vlhova gained her first giant slalom win for a year under the lights at Are, Sweden on Friday (11 March).

Slovakia's slalom gold medallist from Beijing 2022 led Marta Bassino by 0.03s after the first run, and she produced a sparking second run despite the racing line becoming progressively more rutted to beat the Italian by 1.24s.

This was defending World Cup giant slalom champion Bassino's best result of the season having finished third on two occasions earlier in the campaign.

Mikaela Shiffrin moved up from sixth to third (+1.70s) after the second run with her lead over Vlhova in the overall World Cup standings down to 77 points with five races left.

Several skiers struggled in the deteriorating conditions with double Beijing medallist Wendy Holdener lucky to escape injury after crashing through a gate and into the safety netting.

And there was disappointment for the home fans as Beijing 2022 Olympic champion Sara Hector caught her ski in a gate early in her second run after lying in third place at midway.

Tessa Worley's fourth place saw her close the gap on Hector to just five points with just next weekend's World Cup Finals at Courcheval to come.

Ricarda Haaser was fifth ahead of fellow Austrian Franziska Gritsch who had the fastest second run to move up from 25th place after the first descent.

Vlhova, who won the 2019 World Championship giant slalom at Are, said afterwards, "It's quite important. Finally after more than one year I come back and I am on top of the podium so it means a lot.

"I felt really good from the morning and with this kind of conditions I feel really strong and I am able to ski really fast. First run, I did a few mistakes but in the second run I tried to do my best just to ski on a good