American Mikaela Shiffrin paid homage to the victims of an air crash after placing tenth at Thursday's World Cup slalom race in Courchevel ahead of the world championships starting in Austria next week.

Chasing a landmark 100th World Cup victory Shiffrin said her return from injury was timely, but also appeared moved by events back home.

In her first appearance since November following an injury, Shiffrin was 2.04sec slower than rising Croatian star Zrinka Ljutic, who won a third World Cup slalom so far this season.

Shiffrin raced in a slightly ginger fashion after she injured her abdomen in a fall at the end of November.

After the second run the American insisted on paying her respects to the victims of the deadly air crash in the United States in which several American figure skaters lost their lives.

"A lot of my Team USA figure skating teammates were in that accident and everybody there, it was pretty heartbreaking. I just wanted to have a moment for that."

Shiffrin was back in action after undergoing surgery in December after suffering what she described as a "stab wound" following a crash in the giant slalom at Killington, Vermont, on November 30.

She had hit a gate and tumbled through another before sliding into the catch fencing and was taken from the hill on a sled and subsequently to hospital.

Unfazed by missing a hundredth win, the smiley skier was focussed on the worlds.

"It was a very important step in my recovery to see how I'm stacking up with the top skiers in the world," said Shiffrin.

"Before the world championships it was so important to get this start.

"I want to target the giant slalom and slalom and everything really depends on how the next 10 days or until those races, how it goes in training.

"I'm catching up to the fastest in the world so I have a lot of work to do but I'm happy to be here and look forward to trying that."

Following victory, Ljutic is fourth in the overall World Cup standing.

"I had no idea if I'm fastest or not," said the 21-year-old after her second run that left her a full 1.26sec ahead of Swede Sara Hector in second with German Lena Duerr in third at 1.28sec.

"I just wanted to push and I was like 'screw it, I probably already lost my lead' so I tried to push all the way down and I can't believe it.

"I'm living the dream and don't wake me up," she said.

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