The Alpine Skiing World Cup continued with a men's giant slalom in Alta Badia, Italy, and a women's giant slalom in Courchevel, France.

Men's Giant Slalom in Alta Badia

Victor Muffat-Jeandet of France started the race, setting the quickest time of the first run. The giant slalom World Cup leader Marcel Hirscher came close to Muffat-Jeandet, trailing by only 0.05 seconds after the first run. Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen completed the first run's top three, 0.23 seconds from lead.

The first run had big gaps; besides the top three only Felix Neureuther and Philipp Schörghofer finished within a second from lead. The five-time GS World Cup champion Ted Ligety lost 1.44 seconds and was in 10th place.

Norway's speed specialists Aksel Lund Svindal and Kjetil Jansrud were on the start list of the Alta Badia GS. Third in the overall World Cup, Jansrud had a difficult first run, losing 3.69 seconds, and finished in 37th place, failing to make the second run and score points. The overall World Cup leader Svindal did better than his countryman; although he lost 2.51 seconds to leader, he was 24th and qualified for the second run.

Starting as the seventh man on the second run, Svindal finished behind all but one previous skier. Eventually, another skier finished behind so his final position was 28th and he scored three World Cup points.

After finishing his first run in 10th, Ted Ligety claimed the lead after his second run and started to progress towards the top five. He narrowly remained in the lead after Alexis Pinturault's run; the first run's sixth finished 0.09 seconds behind Ligety. Sharing the first run in sixth place, Pinturault's fellow Frenchman Mathieu Faivre went to second place behind Ligety, beating Pinturault by 0.01 seconds.

The first run's fourth and fifth place finishers, Felix Neureuther and Philipp Schörghofer, couldn't beat the times of Ligety, Faivre and Pinturault, nor the time of the USA's Tim Jitloff who was in fourth place. Neureuther and Schörghofer settled into fifth and sixth place, respectively, with the first run's top three remaining.

Henrik Kristoffersen, who finished third in the first run, claimed the lead from Ligety by 1.16 seconds. He gave up the lead immediately to Marcel Hirscher, who finished 0.01 seconds quicker in his second run to take the lead by 0.19 seconds.

The leader of the first run Victor Muffat-Jeandet concluded the race. He couldn't match the second runs of Hirscher and Kristoffersen but finished in third place, 0.86 seconds from Hirscher who won the third consecutive giant slalom. Ted Ligety finished in fourth place, progressing six positions from his 10th place finish in the first run.

The biggest progress of the second run was the USA's Tommy Ford, who leaped from 30th to 12th place with the quickest second run.

Marcel Hirscher leads the giant slalom World Cup by 134 points to second-placed Victor Muffat-Jeandet and 163 points to third-placed Felix Neureuther. With today's result, Hirscher claimed the overall World Cup lead from Svindal and leads him by 20 points.

Matthias Mayer injury update

Austria's Matthias Mayer injured himself in a heavy crash in Saturday's downhill in Val Gardena. The 2014 downhill Olympic gold medalist fractured the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebra and had a surgery Saturday evening in Innsbruck. The recovery will keep Mayer out of competition for the remainder of the season.

Women's Giant Slalom in Courchevel

Photo: Pier Marco Tacca / AP

The winner of Friday's and Saturday's races in Val d'Isère, Lara Gut, continued her good performances on the first run of the Courchevel giant slalom. Only Austria's Eva-Maria Brem was quicker, leading by 0.07 seconds.

Tessa Worley of France was third, 0.18 seconds from Brem. Norway's Nina Løseth continued her good performances after a career-best fifth-place in the previous GS in Åre; she finished the first run in fourth place, 0.30 seconds from lead.

Italy's Federica Brignone, the giant slalom World Cup leader by 28 points over Brem, was only seventh in the first run, 0.71 seconds behind leader.

The winner of the Åre GS, Lindsey Vonn, came to Courchevel with a two-point lead over Gut in the overall World Cup. She finished the first run only in 10th place, 0.89 seconds from lead. She was unable to gain positions on the second run but fell to 13th place.

Ninth after the first run, Sweden's Maria Pietilä-Holmner had a strong second run. She took the lead and was able to progress on the second run.

After a seventh place finish in the first run, the GS World Cup leader couldn't finish her second run as she fell and got off the track. That presented her rivals an opportunity to overtake her in the GS standings.

The first skier to beat Pietilä-Holmner was Germany's Viktoria Rebensburg, fifth after the first run. She beat Pietilä-Holmner's time by 0.30 seconds; though she lost her lead after the next skier, Nina Løseth, beat her time by 0.21 seconds.

First run's third place finisher, Tessa Worley, was going below Løseth's lead time. However, she ran out of the course and couldn't finish the race.

Lara Gut, second place finisher after the first run, had a lead of 0.21 seconds. Her second run was just good enough to share the lead with Løseth, with only the first run's leader Brem to go. Brem was able to retain the lead on the second run, winning the race by 0.17 seconds.

The quickest time of the second run was set by Austria's Katharina Truppe. She progressed from 28th to 15th place.

USA's Mikaela Shiffrin would've been one of the favorites in the race but she crashed and injured herself during the warmup for the previous GS in Åre, suffering bone bruising and an MCL tear. She is unlikely to return to competition this season.

With the win, Eva-Maria Brem claimed the giant slalom World Cup lead by 42 points to second-placed Lara Gut and 72 points to third-placed Federica Brignone.

Gut claimed the overall World Cup lead from Lindsey Vonn to lead her by 58 points. Frida Hansdotter is in third place, already 214 points behind.

Men's World Cup continues with a parallel giant slalom in Alta Badia on Monday and a slalom in Madonna di Campiglio on Tuesday.

Women's World Cup continues with a giant slalom and a slalom in Lienz on December 28-29.