Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Shannon Bahrke may have been wearing the yellow jersey that designates the World Cup points leader Saturday afternoon, but she learned quickly that if you want to win in Steamboat Springs, you have to get past Norway's Kari Traa.

Traa has won the past two World Cup events in Steamboat and made it three in a row Saturday by laying down the best women's moguls run in the finals of the Sprint Freestyle Grand National and running away with the title.

"I like this course," Traa said. "I've always done well here and I like to ski on this course."

Traa led both the qualifying and final round of competition in women's moguls. It was the final women's event of the Steamboat World Cup stop.

The judges gave the Norwegian skiing legend 27.31 points on her final run to move her past American favorite Bahrke, who was sitting atop the 12-skier field in the finals at the time.

"After I saw Ingrid (Bernsten's run), I told myself that I needed to put down something good," Bahrke said. "So I went out of the gate really fast did a really good heli-X (a trick involving one revolution of the air with skis crossed to form the shape of a cross) and then went for broke in the middle section. I got a little tired, but I did my double-twister spread. This is the first competition I've ever done one ... so I was super excited to be on the podium with that. "

Bahrke was the only non-Norwegian skier on the podium at end of the day's events. Norway's Bernsten earned third place with a score of 25.95.

France's Sandra Laoura was fourth after earning a score of 25.90 on her final run.

Steamboat's Emiko Torito was fifth, Australia's Margarita Marbler was sixth and American Laurel Shanley came in seventh. American skier Hannah Kearney was eighth and Australia's Maria Despas, who lives in Steamboat, finished 12th.