Nineteen-year-old ski phenom Mikaela Shiffrin won world championship gold in Saturday鈥檚 slalom at the Alpine Ski World Championships in Colorado.
After building a lead in the first run, Shiffrin started slow in the first half of the second run and was behind at an intermediate time checkpoint, . But a strong performance through the last 10 gates was enough to beat Frida Hansdotter of Sweden by 0.34 seconds.
Shiffrin, who lives in Eagle-Vail, down the road from the Beaver Creek slalom course, was greeted by a large crowd eager to cheer on the hometown favorite. 鈥淚 knew that half the people in the grandstand were people I knew,鈥 she told the Times. 鈥淵ou want to make them happy.鈥
The victory was her second world championship in two tries. She is also the reigning Olympic champion in the slalom.
In the men鈥檚 slalom on Sunday, the final event of the championships, Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Grange won gold ahead of Fritz Dorpfer and Felix Neureuther of Germany, .