Double Olympic champion Maria Riesch finished third in Saturday's slalom at the World Cup finals to win the overall slalom title for the second season running.
Austria's Marlies Schild, who took the silver medal at last month's Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, won the slalom here with the fastest time of 1min 49.57sec with Austria's Kathrin Zettel second at 1.20sec back.
Schild was superb in the morning's first run down the Gudiberg slope and finished with a lead of more than a second over her rivals and the 28-year-old continued her domination in the afternoon's second run.
Germany's Riesch, who won combined and slalom gold in Vancouver, was third at 1.90sec back, but the 60 points she won were just enough to see her win the season's Crystal Globe for the slalom by only three points from Zettel.
"That was a huge weight off my shoulders," admitted Riesch once she knew she had retained her title.
"Things didn't go so easily for me today, but, fortunately, it was still enough at the end."
Riesch finishes with 493 points, compared to Zettel's 490, to take the season's overall slalom title, while US starlet Lindsey Vonn won the overall 2010 World Cup title on Friday with victory in the Super-G.
Hailing from Garmisch, Riesch was delighted to claim the season's title in her home town in the Bavarian Alps which will host the 2011 world championships next February both on the Gudiberg and Kandahar courses.
Copyright 2010 AFP Global Edition
