Hirscher clinches giant slalom World Cup

Pinturault claimed his second win of the season after the Kitzbuehel super-combined, beating the Austrian three-times World Cup champion by 0.68 seconds.

Hirscher now leads Pinturault by 185 points in the giant slalom standings with only one race left at the World Cup finals in Meribel next week.

More significantly, Hirscher left his nearest rival in the race for the overall title's big globe, Kjetil Jansrud, 124 points behind after the Norwegian could do no better than 23rd on the Slovenian course.

It was Hirscher's second giant slalom title after 2012, Olympic and world champion Ted Ligety having dominated the last two editions.

But the American, six times a winner in Kranjska Gora, had to be content with fourth place, 1.88 seconds behind Pinturault.

France's Thomas Fanara was third, 0.93 off the pace.

"In the last couple of years, to win the giant slalom globe had become impossible. Ted did not leave us a chance to dream about the crystal. You just had to hope for him to make a mistake to win a race," Hirscher said.

"It was a hard road to take it back for I spent most of the last two years working on my giant slalom skills at the expense of the slalom. I was the last skier to win it before the rules changed and I really wanted it back badly," he added.

In the women's World Cup, Slovenia's Tina Maze missed one of her last chances to bridge the gap on Anna Fenninger in the overall standings by finishing a lowly 16th in a slalom in Are.

The 2013 World Cup champion will tackle the Meribel finals with a 30-point deficit on the 2014 big globe winner.

The race was won by Olympic and world champion Mikaela Shiffrin in her usual swashbuckling fashion.

The American left her nearest rival, Slovakia's Veronika Velez Zuzulova a huge 1.41 behind with Czech Sarka Strachova finishing 2.15 back.

Shiffrin leads Swede Frida Hansdotter by 90 points in the slalom World Cup and is only 10 points short of her third back-to-back trophy in the discipline.

"I won again in Are, it's fantastic. It's a place where I immediately feel comfortable," said Shiffrin, who bagged her first World Cup victory in the Swedish resort in 2013.