Two giant slalom runs with a dozen other skiers breathing less than a second back. The race was staged in bright sunshine with hard snow at 3,040m altitude, with the race dropping to 2,670m.

Leitinger produced a flawless finale to grab the lead with 1min 03.93sec with Frenchman Mathieu Faivre and Swiss ace Marco Odermatt completing the early podium

The second run starts at 1330 local time.

On Saturday the American Mikaela Shiffrin delivered a dazzling second run in the women’s giant slalom to claim her 70th World Cup win on the same piste.