American Mikaela Shiffrin won the 12th edition of the Snow Queen World Cup slalom race on Mt Sljeme overlooking Zagreb on Saturday.

The leading female skier in the World Cup overall ranking, Shiffrin held on to her first-run lead and beat Petra Vlhova of Slovakia by 1.25 seconds.

Wendy Holdener from Switzerland was 1.75 seconds behind in third place.

Shiffrin won the race in Zagreb three times before – in 2013, 2015 and 2018.

Croatia had one representative in the race, Andrea Komsic, who did not make it to the second leg.

The men’s race will be held on Sunday.

The Snow Queen Trophy slalom races have been taking place since 2005. In 2008, a men’s slalom race was introduced and since then the Snow Queen Trophy races have been among the most watched World Cup races.

According to the information on the organising committee website, “in 2013, the Snow Queen Trophy races were admitted to the Club5 Ski Classics, which gathers traditional organisers of the FIS Ski World Cup races.”

“Zagreb has thus joined the company of the leading organisers of the FIS Ski World Cup races, including Val Gardena, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Kitzbuehel, Wengen and Val d’Isere.”