Are, SWE (Feb. 16, 2019) – On a day that saw all four Canadian racers in the top-22, it was Laurence St-Germain (St-Ferréol-les-Neiges, Que./Club de ski Mont-Ste-Anne) who led the charge, racing to a career-best, sixth-place finish to wrap up her first-ever FIS Alpine World Championships.

“My objective was to (be) top-10, and to come sixth… I’m so happy,” said St-Germain who came into World Championships ranked among the world’s 15 best women’s slalom racers.

Conditions changed throughout the day from rain, to snow, to sun, keeping the racers and their coaches and ski techs on their A-game.

“I knew the conditions were hard, I really gave it my all from the start. My first run I was a little slow out of the start but I skied well at the bottom. (For the second) run I really wanted to attack the whole way down. I didn’t really know how it was going to go but until I crossed the finish line and saw the green light at the bottom. I was so surprised and now I’m really stoked,” St-Germain told media in the finish.

She leaves Sweden and her first-ever World Championships’ appearance with Saturday’s sixth, and a ninth-place finish in the team event.

Teammate and a five-time member of World Championships teams for Canada, Erin Mielzynski (Collingwood, Ont./Georgian Peaks Ski Club), joined St-Germain in the top-10. Mielzynski was climb one spot into 10th in the second run, finishing just over a second behind St-Germain, and 3.54 off the two-run pace of winner Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States.

“I really tried to fight in the second run. I struggle when there are flats and when it’s a kind of groovy snow like (we had today),” said Mielzynski who has been training super well and felt frustrated about that performance. “It’s amazing to see Lo (Laurence St-Germain) in the award ceremony, sixth place. She’s worked really hard so I’m really proud of her and proud of our team today.”

Roni Remme (Collingwood, Ont./Alpine Ski Club), who was the queen in the slalom portion of the 2019 Audi FIS World Championships’ ladies’ combined where she finished fifth, followed up that performance with a 12th-place finish in Saturday’s slalom.

Twenty-year-old Amelia Smart (Invermere, B.C./Panomara Ski Club), who has had less than a dozen World Cup starts over the last two seasons, finished 22nd, using her early second-run start position to climb six spots. Smart was also selected to represent Canada at the FIS World Junior Championships, which kick off on Monday in Italy.

Joining Shiffrin on the podium were Swedish crowd favourite Anna Swenn Larsson, who raced to silver at her home World Championships, and Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova.

The full race results can be found at FIS-SKI.com.

The 2019 Audi FIS Alpine World Championships will close on Sunday with the men’s slalom. The first run is scheduled to begin at 3 a.m. MT/5 a.m. ET, with the second run currently slated to start at 6:30 a.m. MT/8:30 a.m. ET. Both runs will be available for live streaming at CBCSports.ca.