Skiing: Marlies Schild scores World Cup first with fifth win

Schild became the first skier to win five straight World Cup races in one discipline since Vonn won the first five downhills of the 2009-10 season.

The Austrian world slalom champion was fastest in both runs and finished in an aggregate time of 2 minutes 1.32 seconds to beat second-placed Tina Maze of Slovenia by 1.40 seconds.

Austria’s Michaela Kirchgasser came 2.27 behind in third for her first career top-three finish in slalom.

“It would do for me if I won by just a hundredth of a second. [What’s] important is to come first,” said Schild, who won the Zagreb event for a record fourth time after also coming first in 2005, 2006 and 2011.

Schild now has 32 World Cup slalom victories and 34 overall. She is just two away from matching the record of 34 slalom wins held by Swiss great Vreni Schneider, who also won five straight events in the 1989-90 season. “I was thinking before the final run: If I win again, then it’s a whole lot of wins,” Schild said. “But I put that out of my head immediately. I did not want to hold back and give it all in the final run. It has worked again.”

Croatia’s Janica Kostelic still holds the record for most slalom wins within one season – eight in the 2000-01 campaign. Maze had two aggressive runs to come closest to Schild again, like last week in Lienz, Austria. “If you want to be in front, you have to attack,” Maze said. “Marlies is skiing just too well so I am happy with second place.”

Vonn, who failed to finish in Zagreb the past three years, had a blistering final run to earn her second top-10 finish in slalom this season after placing eighth in Flachau two weeks ago.

In her first run, the American was slowed by a stomach illness, which kept her out of bed for most of the night. She lost time considerably in every section and finished 3.02 behind Schild before falling flat in exhaustion.

Vonn still placed 24th to qualify for the final run, in which she raced near-flawlessly to post the post the second-fastest time and finish 3.51 seconds behind Schild.

Her main contender for the overall title, defending champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany, failed to score points.

Vonn leads the overall standings with 641 points, 101 clear of Schild, who does not compete in speed events. Maze is third with 390, while Hoefl-Riesch is sixth with 326 points.

Vonn’s 16-year-old American team-mate, Mikaela Shiffrin, who made the headlines by finishing third in the Lienz slalom last week, went out in the first run when she straddled a gate before the first intermediate time in the upper part of the course, where visibility was hampered by thick fog.