Shiffrin doubles up with parallel slalom victory

American Mikaela Shiffrin overcame a blip in the quarter-finals to win the first parallel slalom event on the women's World Cup circuit on Wednesday.

Racing on a floodlit Emile Allais course in front of a large crowd, the 22-year-old Shiffrin followed up on her giant slalom victory on Tuesday with another World Cup win, her 35th on the circuit.

Having seen off home hope Coralie Frasse Sombet in the first round, Shiffrin easily beat Austrian Carmen Thalmann to move into the quarters.

Another Austrian awaited her there in Ricarda Haaser. A clipped gate by Shiffrin, however, handed her opponent the advantage before the American recovered to win easily, Haaser crashing out in the chaotic rush to the finish line.

Italian Irene Curtoni was next up in the semi-finals, and Shiffrin made no mistake, finishing 0.18sec ahead.

Her opponent in the final was Petra Vlohva, who had seen off Poland's Maryna Gasienica-Daniel, German Marina Wallner, Switzerland's Denise Feierabend and Norwegian Maren Skjoeld.

The 22-year-old Slovak, with three World Cup slalom wins to her name, pushed hard in the final.

But Shiffrin kept her cool and edged Vlhova by four-hundredths of a second on the line to win the high-octane event.

The format saw 32 racers initially paired off, competing in two legs for the opening round before moving to a straight elimination run from the last 16.

Each of the two courses, one red and one blue, was measured to the nearest millimetre using GPS technology, and each race only lasted about 25 seconds, making for a visually gripping and quickfire spectacle under floodlights.

© 2017 AFP