<p>LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland — Mikaela Shiffrin led a World Cup giant slalom that ends the women’s ski season Sunday, after world champion Lara Gut-Behrami made a curious exit.</p>
<p>Gut-Behrami at first seemed to simply stop racing just a few seconds into her run, one day after she was confirmed as runner-up in the overall World Cup title race to Petra Vlhova.</p>
<p>The Swiss star left broadcasters mystified when she skied out after the third turning gate at Lenzerheide.</p>
<p>Gut-Behrami, the overall World Cup champion in 2016, began to stand up straight approaching the gate, relaxed her arms and slowly skied back across the hill wide of the next gate.</p>
<p>It was a strange end to her impressive career revival in 2021. Since January, Gut-Behrami won six World Cup races — including four straight in super-G — plus two gold medals and a bronze at the worlds last month in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.</p>
<p>Gut-Behrami did not stop to speak with media in the finish area.</p>
<p>Earlier in the week, she had spoken critically of the race week scheduling rules. The downhill and super-G events — where Gut-Behrami is stronger than Vlhova — were canceled by difficult weather conditions on Wednesday and Thursday. They could not be moved to Friday when the little-regarded team parallel racing event went ahead without problems.</p>
<p>Shiffrin was well positioned to seek a 70th career World Cup race win, taking a 0.10-second lead over Marta Bassino and Meta Hrovat.</p>
<p>Bassino already secured the season-long giant slalom title.</p>
<p>After an emotionally exhausting Saturday, Vlhova placed 10th with 1.83 to make up on Shiffrin in the second run in the afternoon.</p>
<p>Vlhova is the first Slovakian man or woman to be overall champion in the 54-year history of the World Cup. She was congratulated by telephone <a href="https://twitter.com/ZuzanaCaputova/status/1373303794402988039?s=20">by the state president of Slovakia</a>, Zuzana Čaputová.</p>
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