New Zealand's Alice Robinson has been denied a first alpine World Cup giant slalom crown after crashing in the first run at the World Cup finals at Sun Valley, Idaho
Italian Federica Brignone claimed the title after needing to finish inside the top-13 to pip the Kiwi. Brignone was second behind Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami.
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Robinson came into the final race of the season, with a 20-point lead over Brignone and a chance to become the first New Zealander to win a World Cup crystal globe.
However, the 23-year-old from Queenstown survived an early wobble on the first run she lost her balance on a deep turn on the bottom of the course and could not recover - one of six skiers out of the 28 who started that failed to finish the first leg.
That left 34-year-old Brignone, second-fastest in the first leg by 0.045 seconds.
The Italian needed to finish 13th or better in the second run to seize the giant slalom season crown before Gut-Behrami secured victory on the day.