Alpine skiing-Canada's Grenier wins first World Cup race

Jan 7 (Reuters) - Valerie Grenier from Canada won her first World Cup race on Saturday when she pipped Marta Bassino from Italy in the Giant Slalom at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia.

All eyes were on American Mikaela Shiffrin, who was chasing her sixth consecutive World Cup race win to equal Lindsey Vonn's women's record of 82 victories, but she ended up in sixth place.

Grenier, clocked one minute 55.01 seconds and edged out Bassino by 0.37 seconds. Petra Vlhova of Slovakia claimed third, 0.40 seconds behind Grenier.

"I have words, I still can't believe it," the 26-year-old Grenier said.

"It's a dream come true, I've been wanting it for so long, and I'm just going to cry because I'm so happy."

Shiffrin is still the overall World Cup leader with 1015 points, 369 points ahead of Vlhova.

The World Cup competition will continue on Sunday with another Giant slalom event.

(Reporting by Tommy Lund in Gdansk
Editing by Toby Davis)

((TommyAlexander.Lund@thomsonreuters.com;))