Mikaela Shiffrin closed out a rollercoaster season in style at the World Cup Finals on Thursday in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The Edwards star, who missed 60 days of competition after suffering an abdominal injury at the Killington World Cup GS back in November, put on a clinic in her signature event. Shiffrin scorched the increasingly bumpy slope in a combined time of 1 minute, 45.92 seconds, 1.13 ahead of runner-up Lena Duerr and 1.14 clear of Andreja Slokar in third. Fellow American Paula Moltzan finished sixth.

“I felt really good,” Shiffrin told FIS media after her 101st-career World Cup win. “It wasn’t easy conditions, but I felt on point with my timing. I could see Lena from the start, and she looked so good and so powerful, I thought ‘no’.”

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“You can never take it easy,” the 30-year-old continued. “But I feel super happy.”

Shiffrin, who has a 75.4% podium rate in her 118 slalom starts, won four of the six slaloms she contested this year. She was third in Are, Sweden, on March 9 and placed 10th in Courchevel, France, on Jan. 30, her first race back after the aforementioned crash. The all-time winningest skier decided to pass on the giant slalom at the FIS World Championships in Saalbach shortly after, citing “PTSD-esque fears,” but managed to win gold in the team event and take fifth in the slalom. After a flawless first run in which she built a 0.59-second lead, Shiffrin extended her advantage in the second, posting the fastest third sector in the field. 

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“It’s nice to finish the season with this performance in conditions that I don’t normally feel super comfortable in,” Shiffrin said. “That gives me good motivation for training in the summer period, and for next season.”

Despite missing four of the 10 scheduled World Cup slaloms, Shiffrin — an eight-time crystal globe winner in the discipline — finished fourth in the overall standings with 486 points. Zrinka Ljutic (541) secured the title Thursday while Katharina Liensberger (509) and Camille Rast (492) rounded out the podium.

“I sort of knew I would win it, I just didn’t know how,” Ljutic said after finishing 10th to claim her first globe. “It made me very nervous. It was very difficult mentally, but I am happy I managed to ski and it was enough. I thought I really wanted to charge the second run and it was difficult — it wasn’t my best skiing.”

The 21-year-old becomes the second Croatian to win the slalom title after Janica Kostelic in 2001 and 2006. Ljutic said she grew up hearing about Kostelic and watching videos of her race. 

“I think it is just the start,” Ljutic said. “Coming in this season with the switch (of equipment), there were so many things, so I didn’t put pressure on myself for the results. But I had the wish, I saw myself able to compete for the globe after last season. I had it somewhere in the back of my mind. … “Then at the end of the season I thought ‘woah, it’s actually happening.'”

For Shiffrin, the 2024-25 year ends with five podiums, the fewest in her 14-year World Cup career. Having missed a chance to compete in her backyard at Birds of Prey in December, Shiffrin relished closing this campaign on home soil. 

“Here, they’re cheering and saying ‘come on Mikaela, now is your time’. It’s so exciting to have a crowd like this in the U.S. that is so supportive of ski racing,” Shiffrin told FIS. “In the end, that was probably the thing that gave me the little bit of intensity that I needed.”