Austrian skier Scheib takes World Cup GS for her 3rd win of the season. Shiffrin places 6th

SEMMERING, Austria (AP) — Skiing in front of her home crowd. Winning the race. And going top of the discipline standings.

Julia Scheib could have hardly wished for a better scenario to wrap up her calendar year 2025, just weeks before the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

The Austrian won a World Cup giant slalom on home snow near capital Vienna on Saturday, beating Switzerland's Camille Rast by 0.14 and Olympic champion Sara Hector of Sweden by 0.40 seconds.

Mikaela Shiffrin, the women's record holder with 22 GS victories, finished sixth.

“It’s crazy, I never thought it would be the win. It was so tough, it was so bumpy, and I was so relieved when I came into the finish,” said Scheib, who was two-hundredths behind Hector after the opening run.

In the final run, Scheib trailed then-leader Rast until the final split but had a perfect finish section.

“It’s amazing. I heard the crowd before I (skied) into the last section, I heard the crowd, and I thought I had to let the skis go,” Scheib said.

Alice Robinson, Scheib's main rival in GS, skied out in the first run, enabling the Austrian to overtake her and enter the Olympic year with an 88-point lead in the discipline standings, having won three of the five GS races this season.

A two-time winner this season, Robinson clocked the fastest intermediate time in the opening run before she lost her balance and slid off the course in a left turn.

“I got unlucky and off balance and I pressured in a bad spot and just went face flat,” Robinson said. “I am really disappointed not to be walking away with any points.”

Shiffrin, who won the race in Semmering near capital Vienna four times between 2012 and 2022, finished 1.45 seconds behind Scheib.

Dominating slalom this season with four wins from as many races, Shiffrin is still trying to regain her form in GS, more than a year after suffering a deep puncture wound in her side and severe trauma to her oblique muscles in a bad crash at a race in Killington, Vermont.

“So far this season, the second run, that was maybe the biggest test for me. I was really quite scared, actually," said Shiffrin, referring to the afternoon darkness on the mountain's shadow side.

“I knew it would be bumpy from the first run and I didn't really feel after the first run that I could tackle this again," said the American, who stood eighth after the opening run. “So I changed the mentality on the second, just to try to be as smooth and like soft on the surface as possible. So it wasn't going to be the most fast skiing, or like not the most powerful turns, but it felt much more manageable on the second run.”

The American star, the 2018 Olympic champion, has not been on a giant slalom podium in her past 10 races — the longest streak in her career since the first 15 GS races of her career without top-three result in 2010-11.

Shiffrin’s teammates Nina O’Brien and Paula Moltzan both had nasty-looking crashes. O’Brien slid off the course in the first run and Moltzan fell and hit her head on the snow in the second run, but both apparently avoided injuries.

Before the season, the Austria women's team had not won a World Cup giant slalom for more than nine years. Scheib ended the draught last October at the season-opening race, also in Austria, and added another victory in the most recent GS in Tremblant, Quebec, three weeks ago.

And while her three wins make her a strong medal contender for the Feb. 15 Olympic giant slalom race, Scheib already had bigger plans.

“I want to continue like this, but I want also to focus a little bit on super-G,” she said.

Hector, the reigning Olympic GS champion, was chasing her first victory in nearly a year. The Swede has seven career World Cup wins, all in giant slalom, but has not triumphed since winning a race in Slovenia in the first weekend of January.

“Julia skied really well, I stepped on the brakes a little bit, you cannot do that,” Hector told Austrian TV.

A slalom on the same hill is scheduled for Sunday.

AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

Austria's Julia Scheib, center, winner of an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, poses with second-placed Switzerland's Camille Rast, left, and third-placed Sweden's Sara Hector, in Semmering, Austria, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Giovanni Auletta)

Austria's Julia Scheib celebrates winning an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Semmering, Austria, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Giovanni Auletta)

New Zealand's Alice Robinson reacts after skiing off course during an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Semmering, Austria, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Pier Marco Tacca)

United States' Mikaela Shiffrin ahead of an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Semmering, Austria, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Pier Marco Tacca)

United States' Mikaela Shiffrin competes during an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Semmering, Austria, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Pier Marco Tacca)

Sweden's Sara Hector starts an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Semmering, Austria, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Giovanni Auletta)

Sweden's Sara Hector competes during an alpine ski, women's World Cup giant slalom, in Semmering, Austria, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Pier Marco Tacca)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked the Army’s top uniformed officer to step down, the Pentagon said Thursday without giving a reason for the departure as the United States wages a war against Iran.

Gen. Randy George “will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately,” said Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman. George has held the post of Army chief of staff, which typically runs for four years, since August 2023 under the Biden administration.

The ouster, reported earlier by CBS News, is just the latest of more than a dozen firings of top generals and admirals by Hegseth since he took office last year. Like many of those other firings, Pentagon officials are not offering a reason for George's departure, which comes nearly five weeks into U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and with no clear timeline from President Donald Trump on when the war may end.

George is a graduate of West Point Military Academy and an infantry officer who served in the first Gulf War as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. He also served as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s top military aide from 2021 to 2022 during the Biden administration before taking on top leadership roles in the Army.

George made it through the initial round of firings under the Trump administration in February 2025, when Hegseth removed top military leaders, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top uniformed officer, and Gen. Jim Slife, the No. 2 leader at the Air Force. Trump also fired Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Since then, more than a dozen other top military generals and admirals have either retired early or been removed from their posts.

Among these departures was George’s deputy, Gen. James Mingus, who was in the post of vice chief of staff of the Army for less than two years when Trump suddenly nominated Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve for the position. LaNeve was then serving as Hegseth’s top military aide, having been plucked for that post from commanding the Eighth Army in South Korea after less than a year in the job.

LaNeve will be stepping in as acting Army chief of staff, according to a Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the move before it has been announced. It is a meteoric rise for an officer who was only a two-star general two years ago.

A spokesman for George could not be immediately reached for comment.

This story has been corrected to show that Gen. Jim Slife’s name was misspelled Silfe.

FILE - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, left, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George review troops during the POW/MIA National Recognition Day Ceremony at the Pentagon, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George speaks during the POW/MIA National Recognition Day Ceremony at the Pentagon, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, file)

FILE - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, left, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George review troops during the POW/MIA National Recognition Day Ceremony at the Pentagon, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George speaks during the POW/MIA National Recognition Day Ceremony at the Pentagon, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, file)