LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland (AP) – Julia Mancuso fell out of contention for the World Cup overall title Saturday, finishing 16th in the season’s final slalom and ending her bid to become the first American woman to win the crown in 24 years.

Austria’s Nicole Hosp won the slalom to overtake teammate Marlies Schild in the overall standings. Mancuso secured third place overall, but did not win any points because she didn’t place in the top 15 in the final.

Hosp earned 100 points and leads the overall competition with 1,472 points, 30 more than Schild. Mancuso, who has 1,332 points, tried to match the performance of Tamara McKinney, won the overall crown in 1983.

Bode Miller, who was seventh after the opening giant slalom run, vaulted to third place after a sizzling second trip down the Silvano Beltrametti course. Miller’s performance ended a two-month podium drought.

Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal won the giant slalom to capture the discipline title and overtake Benjamin Raich in the overall standings.

Miller, the 2005 overall champion, will finish the season fourth.

“Still a lot of sloppy turns,” Miller said. “In general, it felt much better. The skis were performing more active at the end of the turn. That’s the way I wanted them to feel all year. It’s exciting.”

It marked Miller’s first podium result since winning on Jan. 13 in Wengen, Switzerland.

“That was the end of a long, long, long dry spell,” said U.S. coach Phil McNichol. “It was a really strong performance.”

Miller delivered the third-fastest final run.

“Bode had some issues on his first run,” said John McBride, the combined coach who came out of retirement last year to work with Miller. “He struggled at the top for maybe 10 gates and then he found his rhythm. The second run was nearly the same set and Bode adjusted nicely, then he skied smart and hammered it.”

Defending champion Raich is 97 points behind Svindal and must win Sunday’s slalom and hope his Norwegian rival earns no points.

Schild had a disastrous run and twice swerved off course.

“Everything is now possible,” said Hosp, the Olympic slalom silver medalist. “I wasn’t calculating the points before my run, I just knew it was important to do well. Now the GS will be extremely important.”

Sunday’s giant slalom will determine the new overall World Cup champion between the two teammates. Hosp won the gold medal in the giant slalom at last month’s world championships in Are, Sweden.

Mancuso had four wins this season and six top-three results. She also won the silver medal in the combined at the world championships.

She emerged as an overall contender less than two weeks ago. She took the overall lead with Austrian speedster Renate Goetschl, who had surgery Saturday after she injured her knee during a recent training run.

“The other girls are really consistent,” Mancuso said. “I needed to have my best races again at the end of the season. But I’ve got plenty of years to hopefully step it up at the beginning of the season so I don’t have to fight as hard at the end of year.”

AP-ES-03-17-07 1658EDT