Mikaela Shiffrin seals skiing’s World Cup overall title

She won gold and silver medals at the Winter Olympics and now Mikaela Shiffrin has sealed the World Cup overall title for the second straight year.

The 22-year-old American scored a third place in a giant slalom in Germany to take an unassailable lead in the season standings ahead of next week’s World Cup finals in Are, Sweden.

Shiffrin becomes the fourth woman this century to retain the overall crown after Sweden’s Anja Paerson, American Lindsey Vonn and Austria’s Anna Veith (nee Fenninger).

The Olympic giant slalom champion took her season points tally to 1573 with her only rival, Austria’s Wendy Holdener, second on 970. With six races left this season and 100 points available for a win, Shiffrin’s total can’t be passed.

She is also likely to clinch a fifth straight slalom World Cup crown with two races left.

The skiing program is one of the most hotly contested of any Winter Olympics, and PyeongChang 2018 is no different. US favorite Mikaela Shiffrin won silver in the alpine combined, taking her PyeongChang Olympic haul up to two, after claiming gold in the giant slalom.

Switzerland's Michelle Gisin took gold, making an Olympic double for her family after elder sister Dominique won the downhill in Sochi four years ago. Her fellow Swiss Wendy Holdener won bronze.

Marcel Hirscher, winner of two gold medals this games and arguably the greatest skier of his generation, was vying for a third Olympic title. But the Austrian lost control and crashed in the men's slalom, leaving the contest wide open.

Sweden's Andre Myhrer clinched gold in the slalom, becoming the oldest Olympic medalist in this event, aged 35 -- improving on his slalom bronze in Vancouver eight years ago.

Sofia Goggia, 25, became the first Italian to win the women's downhill, cementing a successful season in which she leads the World Cup downhill standings.

US skier superstar Lindsey Vonn was denied gold in her signature event at what will likely be her final Olympics, walking away with bronze. She had hoped to reclaim the title she won in Vancouver eight years ago, having missed the chance at Sochi 2014 due to injuries.

Austria's Marcel Hirscher won his second gold in the giant slalom on Sunday, finishing 1.27 seconds ahead of Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen -- the largest margin of victory in the competition since 1968.

Ester Ledecka, the 22-year-old Czech, is better known as a snowboarding world champion, not a super-G skier. The underdog stunned the world as she finished one-hundredth of a second ahead of defending champion Anna Veith.

A big upset in the women's slalom, where US favorite Mikaela Shiffrin, the defending champion, missed out on a medal a day after winning gold in the giant slalom.

Instead, Frida Hansdotter of Sweden claimed her first ever Olympic medal, becoming the third Swede to win slalom gold.

In the men's super-G, Austria's Matthias Mayer grabbed gold, breaking Norway's 16-year grip on the title. Mayer won downhill gold in Sochi. His father Helmut clinched silver in the inaugural Olympic super-G in Calgary in 1988.

Mikaela Shiffrin was set to be the standout star of the Games after she took her first gold, and the second of her career, in the giant slalom.

Norway's Ragnhild Mowinckel won giant slalom silver for her first Olympic medal, finishing 0.39 seconds behind Shiffrin.

Italy's Federica Brignone took bronze, becoming the first Italian woman in 16 years to win an alpine skiing medal.

Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway made history in the men's downhill on day six, becoming the oldest Olympic alpine skiing champion at the age of 35.

Svindal's gold was Norway's first ever Olympic downhill gold. His teammate Kjetil Jansrud took silver, finishing just 0.12 seconds adrift.

Swiss world champion Beat Feuz finished 0.18 seconds behind Svindal, taking bronze.

Austrian superstar Marcel Hirscher won his first Olympic gold in the alpine combined on day four. The 28-year-old has competed in three Winter Games but his previous best was a silver in Sochi.

France's Alexis Pinturault won his second Olympic medal, adding silver in the combined to the bronze he won in giant slalom in Sochi four years ago.

Another Frenchman Victor Muffat-Jeandet won bronze -- a pleasant surprise after recording the 29th fastest time in the opening downhill leg.

Russian Pavel Trikhichev suffers a fall after clipping a gate during the alpine combined downhill. He was the sole Olympic Athlete from Russia to compete in the event.

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Austria’s Annemarie Moser-Proell holds the women’s record with six overall titles between 1969 and 1980. Vonn, who won three in a row from 2008-2010, is second with four.

Shiffrin went to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang with a realistic chance of winning multiple gold medals but after triumphing in the giant slalom she faltered in the defence of her slalom title from Sochi, finishing fourth.

READ: Mikaela Shiffrin – five medals at same Games may be impossible

She hit back with a silver in the combined but the knock-on effects of a compressed schedule because of bad weather meant she declined to race the downhill or super-G, putting paid to pre-Games talk of possible golds in all five of skiing’s individual disciplines.

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Shiffrin told CNN in South Korea. “It’s a really difficult thing to do, that’s for sure.

“Let’s say that everything here worked out perfectly, the schedule went off without a hitch, no wind, none of that, those kinds of factors, I think the most I could have walked away from this Olympics was three medals, not necessarily all gold.”

READ: Mikaela Shiffrin – training an Olympic champion

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Mikaela Shiffrin: What's in her ski bag?

01:23 - Source: CNN

Shiffrin, the three-time slalom world champion, set the World Cup circuit abuzz when she clinched her first ever downhill victory in December in only her fourth ever speed race.

She won 10 races across four disciplines, with six other podium places, to secure the overall crown but admitted an Olympic cleansweep was only a “dream.”

“I was not at the level, with either downhill or super-G, to be a real medal threat, even given my results this season and last season in speed events,” she added in Pyeongchang.

“It was nice to dream about, but it wasn’t there.

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“So, to have two medals, for me, that’s a huge success, especially with the weather conditions.”