The 22-year-old, a bronze medallist at the 2015 World Championships, finished ahead of two German rivals,  Jacqueline Lölling and world champion Tina Hermann, in the women's skeleton event at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

Great Britain's Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold narrowly missed the podium in fourth on her return to competition after missing last season.

Local hero Mirela Rahneva completed a superb day for Canada by setting a new best start time at the Whistler Sliding Centre - of 4.79sec - en route to a fifth place finish on her World Cup debut.

But the day belonged to Vathje, who finished quickest on both runs to post a combined time of 1min 49.25sec.

"I am absolutely speechless," she said.

"I have struggled here for so long and today I fell in love with this track.

 "I felt like an eagle out there. 

"I really just felt like I had wings and was floating down the track - I am beyond thrilled."

Lölling clocked a combined 1:50.09 to finish second just two hundredths of a second ahead of last year's Whistler winner Hermann, third in 1:50.11.

Yarnold was just one hundredth behind in fourth.

The build-up to the new season has been dominated by concerns as to whether World Championships next February should be moved from Sochi following allegations of state-sponsored doping in Russia.

Yarnold has been among those to consider such a move and the expected release of more evidence in the McLaren Report on Friday (December 9) is likely to lead to further speculation.

Germany's Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis won the two-man bobsleigh World Cup leg also taking place in Whistler.

They clocked a combined time of 1:44.21 in their two runs to defeat Rico Peter and Thomas Amrhein of Switzerland, 0.46 behind.

Won Yunjong and Seo Youngwoo of South Korea were third in 1:44.69.