The event, traditionally held on the first Tuesday after the Kitzbühel World Cup event, attracted a crowd of around 40,000 to the Austria ski resort.

Having claimed three consecutive slalom wins, Kristoffersen was one of the skiers receiving the most attention and he produced a first run time of 49.40sec to occupy third position at the end of the first run.

Germany’s Felix Neureuther and Italy’s Stefano Gross were the only men to produce faster times, finishing in 48.33 and 48.83 respectively.

It left Neureuther on course for his first victory for over a year, with 2015 World Cup champion Marcel Hirscher languishing in 22nd position after a problem with his goggles compounded by a series of mistakes, leaving him 2.59 seconds off the pace in front of a home crowd.

With the skies getting every darker, the second runs unsurprisingly proved slower and Neureuther’s hopes of victory came following an error that saw him fail to complete the course.

The consistent Kristoffersen had expressed doubts after the opening run he would be able to make up such a deficit but took full advantage of Neureuther’s misfortune, delivering an impressive run to with a combined time of 1min 42.20sec.

"With the way I'm skiing at the moment, I knew that if I skied okay without too many big mistakes, it would be possible,” said Kristoffersen.

“It was really bumpy, but the bottom part was actually pretty good, I could ski pretty normal there, but the top was really rutted.

“I knew I had to push it the whole way, and now we're standing here."

A stunning display from Hirscher catapulted him up the standings to end second in a time of 1:42.81, at the scene of his slalom gold medal win at the 2013 World Alpine Ski Championships.

The podium was completed by Russia’s Alexander Khoroshilov after he posted 1:42.97.

Germany’s Dominik Stehle finished a further 0.44 adrift to end outside the medals in fourth place.

Gross slipped to sixth position after ending 0.05 behind Germany’s Fritz Dopfer, who clocked 1:43.39.