The 31-year-old World Championship Super-G bronze medallist recorded a time of 1 min 47.29 sec to comfortably see off his rivals.

Austrian super-G world champion Hannes Reichelt was the best of the rest but he was 1.04 sec adrift of the winner's time.

France claimed a second spot on the podium as David Poisson finished 1.15 behind Theaux, who is sixth in the overall standings after the one run race.

The action also saw a change in the overall lead as Aksel Lund Svindal, who has won five World Cup races this season, overtook Austria's Marcel Hirscher who sat out of the action at the Italian resort.

Hirscher has won the last four overall titles and four World Cup races this term, but Norwegian Svindal's seventh place finish today gave him enough points to climb above him.

He now has 636 points with Hirscher on 621, while another Norwegian, Kjetil Jansrud, is third but back on 411.

Meanwhile, there was a first World Cup victory of the women's season for Sweden's Frida Hansdotter, who triumphed in the slalom in Lienz, Austria.

The Swede has claimed two second places and a third this season but did enough for the top step with a combined time of 1:47.02 after her pair of runs.

Wendy Holdener of Switzerland was second, just 0.07 sec back, while Slovakia's Petra Vlhova did enough for third, 0.43 off the pace.

There is no change on top of the overall leaderboard, with Switzerland's Lara Gut still leading American Lindsey Vonn by 158 points.

Both skiers missed the slalom event today in Lienz, with Hansdotter sitting third.

The men's World Cup season will continue in Santa Caterina with slalom on January 6, while the women will head to the same venue after racing in Croatia's capital Zagreb was cancelled due to a lack of snow.

They will convene for slalom on January 5.