The 25-year-old’s time of 2 min 19.71sec saw him beat overall World Cup leader Marcel Hirscher of Austria by 0.34 seconds and move level with legendary compatriot Jean-Claude Killy on 18 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup wins.

Killy, the winner of the downhill, slalom and giant slalom gold medals at the 1968 Winter Olympic Games on home snow in Grenoble, picked up his victories in 1967 and 1968 when he won the first two overall World Cup titles.

Completing the podium in the Santa Caterina event, which combined the times from one super-G run and one slalom run, was Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde in 2:20.84.

Pinturault, who has now won three straight World Cup combined races, found himself third behind Kilde and Hirscher after the super-G but registered the fastest slalom run of 46.22 to take top honours on the Deborah Comagnoni course.

Hirscher, a 47^th-place finisher in the super-G on Tuesday (December 27) has extended his lead in the overall World Cup rankings to 231 points ahead of Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud, who did not finish his slalom run after straddling a gate.

Pinturault is 248 points behind in third going into next Thursday’s (January 5) slalom in Croatia’s capital Zagreb.

That will be followed by a giant slalom and slalom on January 7 and 8 respectively in Swiss village Adelboden.