Austria's Anna Fenninger has overcome a mid-race slip-up to clinch her third world title and second in Beaver Creek on Thursday with a triumph in the women's alpine world championships giant slalom.
The reigning overall World Cup champion clocked the top aggregate time over two runs of 2min 19.16sec, a huge 1.40sec ahead of German silver medallist Viktoria Rebensburg, with bronze medal winner Jessica Lindell-Vikarby of Sweden a further 0.09sec adrift.
Fenninger blitzed the field in the opening leg of the giant slalom and continued her brilliant form in the afternoon session. She had a 0.81 second lead over teammate Michaela Kirchgasser after the first run.
However, Fenninger almost didn't make it down the Birds of Prey course on the second leg as she appeared to completely lose control of her skis on a turn.
She somehow managed to fight through it and stay on her feet for the win ahead of Rebensburg -- who burst onto the scene with a giant slalom triumph at the 2010 Vancouver Games -- and Lindell-Vikarby, a giant slalom and super-G specialist who won a World Cup giant slalom in Beaver Creek in 2013.
Slovenian Tina Maze, who won gold in the giant slalom at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and was seeking a third gold of these championships, placed fifth with a time of 2:20.90.
Crowd favourite Mikaela Shiffrin, who grew up in the Beaver Creek-Vail area, placed eighth with a time of 2:21.63.
Her American teammate Lindsey Vonn, who has struggled with the icy snow and a bad knee at the biennial championships, finished well back, more than three seconds behind Fenninger.
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