Italian skier Federica Brignone won the women’s combined race on the opening day of the world championships on Monday after defending champion Mikaela Shiffrin skied out at the end of her slalom run.
Shiffrin looked to be on course to beat Brignone but the American reached the third to last gate. She was 0.96 seconds behind Brignone after the super-G portion of the race, but had made up 0.88 of that gap before skiing out.
Brigone led her to become the first world champion from Italy in the women’s combined.
“I’m very happy and grateful for today,” Brigon said. “It was a great day. I had two really good runs, the super-G and then the slalom as well. I’m missing a gold medal in my career and I’m very excited and very happy about today.
The Italian said that she arrived in the world in comfort.
“I’m skiing well. I came here really without any stress and I said: ‘I can enjoy,'” Brignone said.
Wendy Holdner had the fastest slalom time as the two-time world champion from Switzerland climbed 13th after the opening run to win silver 1.62 seconds behind Brignone. Bronze went to Austria’s Ricarda Hauser.
The combined event combines the results of the super-G run and the slalom run.
Shiffrin was competing in her first major competition since failing to medal in six starts at last year’s Beijing Olympics. It was the first time since the Olympics that Shiffrin failed to finish a run in a technical race.
Shiffrin was the defending champion in the combined event. She has won six world titles and 11 medals overall from her last 13 starts at the world championships.