Shiffrin wins 1st race after six-week injury layoff to lock up World Cup slalom season title

ARE, Sweden — All Mikaela Shiffrin has been really looking for in her first race back after a six-week injury layoff was “good skiing.”

What she got, though, was even by the American star’s standards “an insane way to return.”

Shiffrin made a triumphant comeback to the World Cup Sunday, dominating the season’s penultimate slalom for career win 96 and locking up her record-equaling eighth season title in the discipline.

Racing for the first time since hurting her left knee in a downhill crash in Italy, the two-time Olympic champion posted the fastest times in both runs to beat Croatian prodigy Zrinka Ljutic by a massive 1.24 seconds and third-placed Michelle Gisin of Switzerland by 1.34.

“It feels like we’re in a dream right now,” Shiffrin said after her sixth slalom win of the season and 59th overall. “There has been so much uncertainty coming into this race. The biggest goal I had was just… good skiing in the final races of the season, so I could sort of prove I have the right pace and the right mentality to close out the season, so next year I start in a better place.”

Shiffrin got much more than that. While she just edged out her competitors in the opening leg, she crushed the field in a free-flowing second run.

“This is an insane way to return,” she said. “It was so nice to race again today and some nerves and all the emotions that I hoped to feel. Really proud of my team, and for sure proud of myself to get back here and show the skiing. The second run was some of my best skiing. I am just so happy to be able to do that again this season.”

Shiffrin had been out since she sprained the MCL and tibiofibular ligament in her knee in January, while also still recovering from a bone bruise she had sustained at the start of the season.

The American, who turns 29 on Wednesday,…