The 29-year-old lined up alongside Sweden’s Sandra Naeslund, the overall tour leader, Canada’s Georgia Simmerling, a bronze medal winner in track cycling at Rio 2016, and Alizee Baron of France in the final.

Zacher had a poor start and was slow out of the gate, allowing Simmerling and Naeslund to battle for the lead.

However, Naeslund made an uncharacteristic error, seemingly making the race Simmerling’s to lose.

It would have been Simmerling’s first-ever World Cup victory but she made an error in leaving the door open on the course’s second negative corner.

This allowed Zacher to charge through the field to claim her third consecutive gold in Innichen.

Simmerling took silver with Naeslund taking the final place on the podium.

Zacher, who made her World Cup debut in 2009, now has four wins and six career podium finishes at the Italian resort.

This victory means the German has now overtaken Naeslund in first place in the overall season ski cross standings with 340 points to Naeslund’s 320.

The men’s event saw Switzerland’s Marc Bischofberger claim his first World Cup win since winning gold at Val Thorens in January 2015.

Bischofberger ran the perfect race as he held onto the lead he took at the starting gate.

Austria’s Christoph Wahrstoetter claimed the third silver medal of his career ahead of compatriot Thomas Zangerl, a silver medalist at the 2009 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships in Inawashiro, Japan.

As was the case with Zacher in the women’s event, Bischofberger’s win helped him leap to the top of the overall ski cross standings with 202 points, 28 points ahead of Russia’s Sergey Ridzik, who finished fifth, in second.

The final day of the Innichen event takes place tomorrow with only the top 16 ladies and 32 men in the tour standings eligible to race.