Worley wins another giant slalom

Shiffrin finishes sixth after tough second run down the mountain; her overall lead drops to 8 points.

sestriere, italy» Tessa Worley won her second straight World Cup giant slalom Saturday after first-run leader Mikaela Shiffrin struggled in her second trip down the 2006 Turin Olympics course.

Charging after placing third in the opening run, Worley captured her 10th career giant slalom win to match the French record set by Carole Merle between 1988 and 1993.

Worley finished 0.15 seconds ahead of rising Italian skier Sofia Goggia and 0.29 in front of defending overall World Cup champion Lara Gut of Switzerland.

“It’s a tough day to win,” said Worley, the GS world champion in 2013. “Those girls are fighting hard and I try to fight a bit harder.”

It was a memorable day for the French team with Alexis Pinturault winning a men’s GS on home snow in Val d’Isere.

Worley also won a GS in Killington, Vt., two weeks ago.

Shiffrin, the American who won the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, lost a big chunk of time early in her second run after getting thrown off course and finished sixth.

Shiffrin’s lead over Gut in the overall standings was cut to eight points, although she’ll be the favorite in a slalom on Sunday.

Frenchman posts fastest time

val d’isere, france» A hand injury could not stop Frenchman Alexis Pinturault from conquering the icy Face de Bellevarde course as he won another World Cup giant slalom race to ramp up the pressure on rival Marcel Hirscher of Austria.

The 25-year-old Pinturault earned his 17th career World Cup win and eighth win in GS, beating the French GS record.

Despite severely bruising his right hand in a training fall on Thursday, Pinturault finished 0.33 ahead of Hirscher — who is the five-time defending overall World Cup winner — and 1.5 seconds clear of Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen.