Mikaela Shiffrin put herself in a commanding position for a record-breaking 87th World Cup win after dominating the opening run of Saturday's slalom in Are.
The American skier, who on Friday equalled Ingemar Stenmark's long-standing mark of 86 wins, led Sweden's Anna Swenn Larsson by 0.69 seconds at the halfway stage. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland was third at 0.94sec.
Olympic champion Petra Vlhova paid the price for a costly mistake and was 2.15sec adrift of Shiffrin, who secured a fifth overall crystal globe last weekend.
The second run is scheduled to get under way at 1230 GMT.