Federica Brignone denies Mina Fuerst Holtmann shock Courchevel win

Mina Fuerst Holtmann led everywhere but the finish in the Courchevel giant slalom on Tuesday (17 December) as Federica Brignone claimed her 11th World Cup victory.

It was a sweet success for Brignone who was second in the Killington GS at the end of November and second behind fellow Italian Sofia Goggia in the St. Moritz Super G just three days ago.

The PyeongChang 2018 giant slalom bronze medallist overturned a deficit of 0.13s from the first run to take victory by just 0.04s.

Holtmann secured her first World Cup podium with Switzerland's three-time Olympic medallist Wendy Holdener scoring her first giant slalom top-three finish in third.

Series leader Mikaela Shiffrin was surprisingly off the pace in both runs, finishing down in 17th position.

Holtmann just denied at the death

For most of the morning and afternoon, it looked like Holtmann would clinch a first World Cup victory in the French Alps.

The 24-year-old Norwegian had a career-best fourth place in the October season-opener in Soelden, and took an advantage of one-tenth of a second over Brignone's team-mate Marta Bassino into the second run.

Brignone, third after the first run, produced a fine second run to beat Holdener by four-tenths of a second before Bassino struggled on her second descent.

With just 0.13s in hand, Holtmann actually extended her lead on the top half of the course before losing time on the bottom half to finish just outside Brignone's combined time.

She was nonetheless delighted at her first career podium with Holdener also on the podium for the first time in giant slalom.

Petra Vlhova of Slovakia was tied for fourth with Germany's 2010 Olympic champion Viktoria Rebensburg.

Young New Zealand sensation Alice Robinson, who triumphed in Soelden at the start of the campaign, was seventh on the first run but finished 10th.