St.Mortiz, therefore, offered the skiers that opportunity to make a statement of intent to their rivals and display their form, reflected by Germany's Andrea Rothfuss claiming a notable scalp in the form of France's world and Paralympic champion Marie Bochet.

Rothfuss posted a combined time of 1min 53.37 from her two runs, which proved to be the fastest runs of the competition, with Bochet settling for silver in 1:54.13 in the women's standing competition and the rivalry could be one to watch at the Championships, due to take place in Panorama, Canada from February 28 to March 10.

The men's equivalent competition saw Austria's Matthias Lanzinger, formerly one of the world's top downhill skiers before losing a leg in an accident seven years ago, take the spoils ahead of Russia's Sochi 2014 silver medallist Alexey Buagev.

The Russian has enjoyed an excellent season so far but finished his two runs in 1:44.62, trailing his rival by just 0.9 seconds as Lanzinger completed his runs in 1:44.53.

Buagev's fellow Russian's Valerii Redkozubov and his guide Evgenii Geroev enjoyed better fortunes in the men's visually impaired event, the duo having started the season in some style with four consecutive wins in early December look favourites for the men's title in Canada, as they won in Switzerland in 1:50.67, four seconds clear of their nearest challengers.

While Redkozubov and Geroev have been winning throughout the season the women's visually impaired event saw new faces atop the podium, with Britain's Millie Knight and her guide Jen Kehoe sealed a first ever World Cup triumph, with their time of 2:09.20 proving to be six seconds faster than America's Danelle and Rob Umstead.

Millie Knight of Great Britain earned her first World Cup win ©Getty Images



There was another upset in the women's giant slalom sitting competition as Paralympic champion Anna Schaffelhuber of Germany was piped to top spot by Austria's Claudia Loesch, with the pair separated by a narrow margin of 0.85sec, Loesch winning in 1:57.00.

Similarly to Schaffelhuber, Japanese world champion Taiki Morii will hope that today's results do not prove to be prophetic of next month's World Championships as he was unable to rival Germany's Georg Kreiter, who put down the fastest two runs to claim the men's sitting.

World Cup racing is due to continue tomorrow with more giant slalom events, while the slalom events will be held on Wednesday and Thursday (February 4 and 5).

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