The 29-year-old replicated his successes of 2013 and 2017 by clocking a time of 1min 56.82sec on the famous Streif course, edging World Cup standings leader Beat Feuz of Switzerland by a margin of 0.20 seconds.

Austria’s Otmar Striedinger delighted the home crowd with a third-place finish, 0.37 seconds behind, in an event moved to today due to a very bad weather forecast for tomorrow.

Paris is the seventh skier with at least three victories on the course and only Austria’s Franz Klammer and Switzerland’s Didier Cuche have more with four and five respectively.

The Italian has been in excellent form this season, starting with two third-place finishes in North America and following them up with a double win in Bormio in his home country. 

Feuz’s runners-up finish was his third on the Kitzbühel downhill.

The Swiss, winner of the crystal globe in the discipline last year, pushed hard down the Streif and laid down a nearly perfect run. 

"Of course I would love to win in Kitzbühel - it’s the dream of every downhiller, but today, again, Domme was unbeatable," Feuz said.

With this fifth podium in a row, Feuz also extends his lead in the downhill standings and is now 100 points ahead of nearest challenger Paris on 420.

Italy’s Christof Innerhofer, who had to settle for fourth place today, is 160 points off the pace in third.

The surprise performance of today came from Striedinger as he registered the second podium finish of his career.

It comes more than five years after his first when he came second in the super-G in Beaver Creek in the United States.

Action in Kitzbühel is due to continue tomorrow with the slalom event.

Competition is also scheduled to begin at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup for women in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany.

Austria’s Mirjam Puchner was fastest in the second and final training run today, completing the Kandahar course in 1:40.22.

Switzerland’s Corinne Suter, quickest in the first training run yesterday, finished second in 1:40.30, while Austria’s Ramona Siebenhofer came third in 1:40.47.

The downhill event was originally scheduled for tomorrow, but organisers amended the programme because of adverse weather forecasts.

It is now due to take place on Sunday (January 27).

The super-G will precede the downhill tomorrow.

America'sLindsey Vonn has decided to skip this weekend's races to give herself chance to recover from the pain she is experiencing in her knees.

Vonn announced on Sunday (January 20) that she may bring her retirement forward due to the issue. 

This came after the three-time Olympic medallist failed to finish the super-G event in Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy having run off the course.

The 34-year old told reporters that the event may have been her last World Cup race.

She was initially considering retirement in December but said calling time on her career could come even sooner.