Laurence St-Germain won the women's slalom against the odds in France ©Getty Images

Canadian Laurence St-Germain has shocked double Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States to win women's slalom gold at the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) Alpine World Ski Championships in Courchevel.

St-Germain had never finished higher than sixth in a major slalom race but caused a huge upset with her time of 1min 43.15sec.

Shiffrin looked like she was heading towards an eighth world title after leading the pack from the first run.

However, a 29th-best time of 51.18 in the second cost her the victory as her overall time was 0.57 off the pace.

Germany's Lena Duerr rounded out the top three with 1:43.84 on the clock.

"I just wanted to really attack," said St-Germain, who is Canada's first female slalom world champion since Anne Heggtveit took gold at Squaw Valley in 1960, when the Olympic Games doubled up as the World Championships.

"I had a bit of mistake but kept just thinking go down, go down, go down.

"And it worked out.

"I saw 1 [on the scoreboard] and I thought that can't happen.

"I was like 'God, it's impossible'.

Before today, St-Germain had never finished higher than sixth in a major slalom race ©Getty Images
Before today, St-Germain had never finished higher than sixth in a major slalom race ©Getty Images

"I knew I was skiing fast in training and I knew if I stuck to my plan then I could do good things.

"But winning was not expected at all, like ever."

Reigning Olympic champion Petra Vlhova only managed a fifth-place finish, 0.97 seconds slower than St-Germain.

Estonian Tormis Laine led the men's slalom qualification race after finishing on 1:39.61 to beat Japan's Seigo Kato and Eduard Hallberg of Finland with times of 1:40.66 and 1:40.73 respectively.

The champion is set to be crowned in the men's slalom tomorrow on the final day of the Championships.