Vlhová and Shiffrin entered the event at the pre-race favourites, with the pair occupying the top two positions on the World Cup circuit for the discipline.

World Cup leader Vlhová was forced to settle for eighth place after the first run after achieving a time of 52.89sec, with Germany’s Lena Dürr setting the pace in 52.17.

Shiffrin faced further disappointment after failing to finish the giant slalom on Monday (February 7), with the Sochi 2014 gold medallist missing a gate on her first run, which saw her exit the competition.

The second run saw Vlhová produce the fastest run of the event, with a time of 52.09 pushing her into top spot on the leaderboard.

Vlhová's combined time of 1min 44.98sec proved enough to secure gold.

"Honestly, it was really difficult to be calm and focused on my skiing," Vlhová said, after earning Slovakia's first gold medal of Beijing 2022.

"But I had a lot of power from my team.

"They trusted me, they believed in me and they repeated to me, 'You are so strong, just ski free, enjoy and focus on your skiing, nothing else'.

"They were always repeating this to me in between the two runs.

"I gave everything I had and at the end I am Olympic champion."

Austria’s Katharina Liensberger finished 0.08 behind to claim silver, while the podium places were completed by Switzerland's Wendy Holdener.

Holdener ended in a combined time of 1:45.10 from her two runs.

The result gave Holdener a fourth Olympic medal, adding slalom bronze to the silver she earned at Pyeongchang 2018.

First-round leader Dürr missed out on the medal places, ending 0.07 behind the Swiss skier.

Shiffrin expressed disappointment following her second early exit at Beijing 2022, having headed into the Games as one of the United States' star names and already boasting more World Cup wins than all but two skiers in history.

"I was pushing and maybe it was just past my limit," Shiffrin said.

"I had the intention to do my best skiing and my quickest turns but in order to do that I had to push the line, the tactics and it's really on the limit then and things happen so fast that there is not space to slip up, even a little bit.

"I started with a strong mentality and then I was out of the course.

"It feels like a really big let down.

"It's not the end of the world and it's so stupid to care this much, but I feel I have to question a lot now.

"It's a let down of everything, letting down myself, letting down other people. "