race, winning the Courchevel giant slalom in December and the Flachau night slalom in January, and placing third in the slalom at Semmering in late December. However, at the 2021 World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Shiffrin emerged on top form, performing perhaps even better than expected and winning four medals, the most she has won in a single World Championship event. Her bronze medal run in the Super G was her first time competing in a speed event in over a year, as she had opted not to return to speed events this season due to her wanting to ensure that the return to racing would not be too heavy as well as the COVID-19 pandemic keeping her apart from the speed team and training. This feat was made more impressive by the fact that she had only trained Super-G for four days going into the competition. Her gold medal in the Alpine Combined made her the most successful American alpine skier in the World Championships – with her sixth gold and ninth medal she surpassed the record five WCH gold medals won by Ted Ligety, as well as the record of eight WCH medals in total held by Lindsey Vonn. In the Giant Slalom, many of the favorites struggled, with World Cup leader Marta Bassino, two-time world champion Tessa Worley and reigning world champion Petra Vlhova struggling in both runs while the host country favorite Federica Brignone failed to finish the first run. Shiffrin ultimately won the silver in the Giant Slalom after narrowly finishing in first after one run, only .02 ahead of teammate Nina O’Brien and .08 ahead of Lara Gut-Behrami. Going into the second run with a narrow lead, a mistake at the top of the course caused her to miss out on the gold medal; although she made up lost time at the bottom of the course, it wasn't enough, finishing only .02 seconds behind Gut-Behrami. Austrian Katharina Liensberger moved up to third with only a .09 second deficit, making it the closest contested Giant Slalom in world championship history. Shiffrin entered the final race of the championships, the slalom, with a record four consecutive world championship titles to her name. However, she struggled in the first run, skiing into fourth with a 1.30-second deficit behind Liensberger, Vlhova, and Wendy Holdener. She was able to overtake Holdener in the second run but was beaten by