The Slovenian had been forced to settle for silver in Super-G on Tuesday (February 3) behind her Austrian rival but was able to reverse their positions in the downhill as she edged her to gold in a thrilling climax which saw them separated by the narrowest of margins.

Fenninger set the fastest time earlier in the competition with 1min 45.91sec to sit ahead of her compatriots Nicole Schmidhofer and Elizabeth Görgl.

But, the prospect of Austria maintaining the top three positions on the podium appeared unlikely, with Switzerland's Lara Gut, the United States' Lindsey Vonn and Maze awaiting their runs.

Gut was first of those three to challenge that mark, with the Swiss athlete posting a time of 1:46.23 to move into second place on the leaderboard, but eyes were soon on the Olympic champion Maze.

The Slovenian, who has been competitive at the top of the World Cup standings in 2015, appears to save her best for the big moments, as she was able to shave 0.02 seconds off Fenninger's time to put herself into pole position with just Vonn still to race.

The American has been in spectacular form recently, having broken the record for the most World Cup wins in the past couple of weeks, but the home favourite was unable to make further history in front of a rapturous crowd, finishing fifth in 1.46.94.

Maze was forced to settle for silver in the Super G but turned the tables on Fenninger in the downhill ©AFP/Getty Images



Maze's victory secured her third world title but first in the women's downhill, having clinched gold in the giant slalom in 2011 at Garmisch, Germany, and the Super-G title in 2013 at Schladming, Austria.

The 2014 Olympic giant slalom champion will now turn her attentions to completing the set of world titles by securing the Alpine combined discipline with the event due to get underway next Monday (February 9).

Attention now turns to the men's downhill competition which is set to get underway tomorrow.