Sonja Nef of Switzerland, the reigning world champion, collected her second straight World Cup giant slalom title Saturday, winning the final GS of the season by nearly a full second over Swedish racer Anna Ottosson. Sarah Schleper (Vail, CO) was top U.S. racer, finishing 15th.

Nef held a 1.01 second lead after the first run in the softening snow and went on to win in 2:42.96. Ottosson finished in 2:43.80 with Tanja Poutiainen of Finland completing the podium in 2:44.49.

Schleper was 16th in the first run and finished in 2:46.19. Kristina Koznick (Burnsville, MN) was 20th and Julia Mancuso (Olympic Valley, CA), who got to race at World Cup Finals after winning the GS at the World Junior Championships a week earlier, was 25th.

"It was good for Sarah to be in the top 15 so she gets some World Cup points," said Head Coach Marjan Cernigoj. "We've almost got this baby [the season] into the crib...

"The conditions were soft. In the warm weather, it was hard for everybody," he said. "Julia went down on her hip on both runs but hung in there and, even with this disappointment, she's had a phenomenal season."

But even as the women were racing, the coach said, the talk was about the second run skied by Bode Miller (Franconia, NH) as he charged out of eighth place to finish second a short time earlier in the men's slalom finale. "He laid down an unbelievable run. The crowd was 15,000 to 20,000 people and they were loving it," Cernigoj said. "People were so caught-up in this fantastic duel between Bode and [Croatian Ivica] Kostelic. There were thousands of Croatians here, so they were going crazy. It was so good to see...like the Olympics all over again."

The women conclude their portion of the Cafè de Colombia World Cup schedule Sunday with slalom. U.S. racers will head to Squaw Valley, Calif., for the start of the Chevy Truck Alpine Championships in a few days. The championships will include slaloms at Sugar Bowl Resort.

— Courtesy US Ski Team