Sara Hector ends near 2-year drought, taking women's giant slalom over Mikaela Shiffrin

In a race overshadowed by a season-ending knee injury for home favourite Petra Vlhova following a crash, Olympic champion Sara Hector dominated an eventful women's World Cup giant slalom Saturday for her first win in nearly two years.

Hector posted the fastest time in each of two runs, the second in one minute 7.62 seconds, to beat American star Mikaela Shiffrin by 1.52 seconds with a 2:17.80 combined time in Jasna, Slovakia. New Zealand's Alice Robinson trailed by 2.71 in third (2:20.51).

It was the biggest winning margin in a women's GS in 20 years, since Swedish great Anja Paerson beat runner-up Tina Maze of Slovenia by 1.98 at a race in Germany.

Vlhova tore ligaments in her right knee, her team said, when she crashed and slid into the safety netting.

"I'm positive I can handle the situation," Vlhova said in a statement released by her team. "I will fight for the earliest possible comeback."

Racing in front of 10,000 spectators in Jasna, a resort about 17 kilometres from her hometown of Liptovsky Mikulas in the Tatra mountains, Vlhova lost balance in a left turn 14 seconds into her run.

The Olympic slalom champion adjusted her position and initially avoided a fall but then leaned backward and went down sideways before sliding into the safety fencing.

With their rivalry going on for years, Vlhova once more was Shiffrin's closest challenger in the slalom standings this season. Combined they won all seven races so far, with the American star triumphing four times, most recently at a night race in Austria last Tuesday.

Vlhova is also runner-up to Shiffrin in the overall standings, trailing the American by 307 points. But having reduced her schedule to only slalom and GS this season, Vlhova didn't consider herself a