KRANJSKA GORA, Slovenia, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Switzerland's Camille Rast ended U.S. Alpine ski great Mikaela Shiffrin's season-long winning streak with victory in a women's World Cup slalom in the Slovenian resort of Kranjska Gora on Sunday.
The victory, by 0.14 seconds, denied Shiffrin a sixth slalom win in six races this season and completed a weekend technical double for Rast after she won the giant slalom on the same slope on Saturday.
Switzerland's Wendy Holdener completed the podium, 1.83 seconds off her teammate's pace on the Podkoren 3 piste.
Shiffrin, who also won the last slalom of the 2024-25 season, stayed top of the slalom and overall standings with reigning slalom world champion Rast moving up to second in both.
The American had trailed Rast by 0.10 after the first run, with Holdener a distant third, but a storming and flawless second run left her on the brink of a record-extending 107th career success and 70th slalom win.
Rast instead went even faster to claim her career fourth win, and third in slalom, to establish her credentials as the leading Swiss female ski hope for next month's Milano Cortina Olympics and Shiffrin's biggest rival.
Italian-born teenager Lara Colturi, who will be competing for Albania at the Games, fell on the first run and halfway down a course set by her father Alessandro.
Colturi, on the podium in four of the previous five slaloms, appeared unhurt.
Austria's 2021 slalom world champion Katharina Liensberger was absent after having successful knee surgery on Friday following a crash in training that has ruled her out of the Olympics.
"The Olympic season is over," she posted on Instagram.
"I am very happy about all the successes I celebrated in 2021 in Cortina d'Ampezzo and I wish all participants this year the best of luck and injury-free games."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
