Normally, Mikaela Shiffrin probably wouldn’t be too thrilled to find herself at the back of the top 10. But at Thursday’s night slalom in Courchevel, France, the winningest skier in World Cup history was just happy to be back.

“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,” Shiffrin said after placing 10th in her first World Cup race since getting injured on Nov. 30 in Killington, Vermont. The 29-year-old was in fifth after the first run.

“It was a little bit of my rhythm or timing to catch the track in the right way and I was just fighting it a little bit,” the Edwards skier said of her first trip down the Stade E. Allais slope. “And that’s not really something I could fix for today. I had to race today in order to know that.”

Croatia’s Zrinka Ljutic won her third slalom of the season in dominant fashion, finishing 1.26 seconds ahead of Sweden’s Sara Hector as Lena Duerr rounded out the podium.

“I’m so happy,” Ljutic said. “I tried to have an aggressive and direct line, and I had no idea if I’m fast enough. Then I told myself just push as much as you can and if it goes, it goes. And it worked.”

Hector moved up five places and was well-positioned to capture her first career slalom win. The 32-year-old sat in the leader’s chair until Ljutic hopped in the gate as the final competitor for the evening.

“I did not expect that really today, I don’t know. I didn’t really have the feeling for it, but apparently it was fast,” Hector said after earning her second-straight podium. “But I’m extremely happy and proud.”

Shiffrin called Thursday’s race “an important step” in her injury recovery. She suffered a seven-centimeter-deep puncture wound in her oblique muscle from the Killington GS in November and underwent surgery in mid-December. Since then, the 99-time World Cup winner has been steadily gaining strength rehabbing at her home in Edwards. Her return was announced on “Today” last week and on Wednesday she provided more details regarding her outlook on the rest of the season in a 30-minute press conference.

“This return to competition is part of the recovery,” she said on Wednesday. “It actually doesn’t even mean I’m recovered or I’m back to 100%. It means that we’ve gotten far enough in the recovery now that I’m strong enough physically, and I’ve had enough turns of slalom, to feel comfortable to push out of the start gate.”

Shiffrin — who came into the race having won the last six slaloms she’d entered — was the only American out of five starters to finish the first run. In the second, she looked less stable than normal, nearly losing her balance at the end of the second sector before bleeding more time in the third. She wound up with just the 22nd-fastest second run of the day.

“The conditions were difficult and the course set for both runs was great but for me felt challenging,” Shiffrin said. “And the top women — they’re just skiing amazing. I really appreciate watching them and I’m so happy to be back competing with them.”

After a downhill on Feb. 2 in Garmisch, the women’s World Cup tour takes a break for the FIS Alpine Ski World Championships Feb. 4-16 in Saalbach, Austria. As of right now, Shiffrin will focus on the two tech events. The giant slalom is Feb. 13 and the slalom is Feb. 15.

“It was so important to get this start before the world champs,” Shiffrin said, adding that her official plate in Saalbach depends on how the next 10 days of training goes. “We have a really good plan to get some days on snow.”